After work, I rest in the wispy warmth of a waning
December sun. On the table by the window, piles
of half-read books leer at me and I at them.
In the fading light, a hawk swoops by, hungry.
Hungry, I reach for my phone; looking down,
I spot a pile of dust, make a note to sweep it up
when I have the time. A plane streaks past and
I think of my honeymoon, how, growing up,
I would travel to Glacier Bay with Mom
and Baba, the light so bright off the ice it
blinded you into silence. The glaciers are gone,
I remember with a start; what a profound loss
that I am among the last to see them! An alarm
sounds, someone knocks at the door, the TV
blares a warning about a storm, a crisis, a war.
Then night comes like velvet, like black waves
painting me with a salty brush—me, a seashell
on this bed of sand, missing the waning moon
call out to me, missing the dalliance of atoms—and
I dream the dreams of those who want for nothing.
