this is what the wind sounds like in hanging
vines, when it is too dark to see across the road
and there are no stars, a blind sound leading
nowhere. Even lightning bursts faintly
here, the porch swept and the wood piled.
It is a believable stagnancy, the door shut
on the woodstove, the brooked flames.
I made a promise not to sleep before midnight, to wait
and see what feet brush the porch,
to ask the leaves or the stagnant water
to move. On a half-dark porch, you are
sitting at the other edge of this
continent writing about lightning that might
strike: a man who kissed you in the kitchen
and said nothing. A half-storm is always
about to begin here. I’ve had enough of this kind
of touch. The night is dead when you want it
to say anything.