Home Alone

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Home Alone


Coming home she called to say 

she took the girls and they’d be back 


by six, time an unexpected gift 

I didn’t know how best to use, 


so read a bit on the porch 

while the light last then closed 


the book when it didn’t, 

which it never does. These days


dusk edges in earlier, always

earlier, a tide lapping at our toes, 


but if it's time for shutting down

the piano doesn't know,


and in this hollow no one’s here

to call to mind how loud is decent


to bang the blacks in defiance

against the dark.



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