night

In my mother's house there are blackout curtains.

She is blind now, or so she tells me, yet she sleeps with two night lights burning to guide her to her bathroom. I close my eyes and make my way in the dark.

The moon makes a webbed square of light on her textured bathroom window.

I open my eyes for that.

In Texas, there is the river running outside the bedroom.

The owls hoot at night.

Concrete floors are cool on the soles of bare feet, cool and smooth

and off the balcony, the street lights shine.

I can hear the refrigerator from the bedroom.

Sometimes there are bugs, big ones,

sometimes thunder.

I hate to say goodbye.

In Mystic, I sleep under starlight.

The sky so liquid and dark, the north star is as bright as the moon

the foghorn moans faint and high,

there are no streetlights. The night is uninterrupted.

but I sleep alone, and always will in Connecticut.

In Ottawa, if I remember,

sometimes there are voices.

There are the clouds over the hills in the distance

a few shop signs and some treetops that mark the passage southwest.

I leave all the windows open

and the lights off

listen to NPR and wake up as soon as the sun says so.

Apart from that, I am uninterrupted.

No matter what.