Today from the darkened room I heard
the men across the lake, taking up the dock
for winter. They stacked the clattering sections
well up the sandy slope, then
shedded the canoes; and I suppose
they left the cabins locked.
Late afternoon the paper carrier’s car
slowed on the blacktop, stopped,
and, flinging gravel, started up again.
I know the garden ramps and goes
to seed. And the Blue Jay chills
with its call that sounds like the butcher’s
saw when it cuts into bone.
The room turns darker still
by insensible degrees, and crickets
shrill from the window well. . . .
I’m falling upward, nothing to hold me down.
