Evening walk

The sun set. The heat rises

Still. I walk past a telephone pole

Another dog barks. My dog looks at me

Wonders, “Should I answer?”

I consider

A dead bird distracts him

Clouds drowning like a feather

Panting in the bloom of stars

Once I believed there were bridges

Between us, between each of us.

I still do. I didn’t tell him to do it, that

Fervor of belonging. Set into place

Like a crucifix. Who are we against

The twilight? Why do dead birds sing?

Letters pressed

Against factories of fiction to recurse our music.

Every night. Every waking, blameless

Breath. Trembling beneath

A smooth bright animal

Slowing down. And the tree.

And leaves and moon and stone.