Although
the moon is rising and the doors of the house
are locked against the darkness,
and pockets of leaves spin to no purpose
in the whirlwind, I get up
and dress myself, drawn by the shouts
of the children on the playground
playing tug-of-war and crack-the-whip,
the lines alive, taut,
as the smaller ones spin away, one by one,
into dark corners where nothing can save them,
and I join the game without a word to anyone,
caught in a line
snaking backward and forward
until it joins, like time, at either end and
mends invisibly,
the face of the child on either side of me
pale as a star
as each holds my hand tightly,
begging to enter the world and live a little while,
my body the instrument of passage.
We play
as the clock strikes
one, then two, then three,
encircled by light, outside the circle shadow,
and they make all the rules,
and I obey,
no thought to the waning moon
that turns the city grey, the world inverted
like a dream I’ll wake alone from in the morning,
the bed’s cold sheets
thrown off like so many obligations,
as they pull me toward them and I pull away,
the future bearing down so quickly upon us.
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