DUSK
The twilight settles in a dusky blue breath.
Sparrow flits outside my window, making a home
with leaves and twigs and threads of deepening sunlight,
golden threads that she wriggles from the sky
with her lone song. I, too, am burrowing
a nest from the threads of the world,
knitting sadness with the soft clover palms
of my hands: sweet, warm, and lonely.
In the hallway, my neighbor’s keys clink
as she turns the corner of the staircase,
and she’s singing today, a lilting melody
that sounds like slanting sunlight,
her voice like a sparrow. Also:
the sycamore tree dropped its yellow leaves
yesterday, revealing veiny gray limbs
that seem to reach towards the blue night
like old arms. These are the threads
that I weave into my heart: this,
the lonely song, the deepening light,
the ribbed parabolas of trees, the silent snow,
the cricket, the static and the whispering flame.
These are all there is.