Ordinary Nights

Suddenly the house is still. Our cats
turn on their cushions, safe
from the children for another day.
Sometimes we make dinner, closing
cabinets gently and speaking low. Ginger
and onion perfume our kitchen.
Outside the air is quiet, or sometimes it buzzes
with cicadas and lawnmowers. We
settle together, finally ourselves, more animal
and undone. You tell me about a house
up the hill, a door stood alone in the yard,
wild chamomile growing across the threshold.
The morningpale willow sweeps its branches
in the moonlight. This is a story, you say.
We listen to Jimmi Harvey play through
the speakers. These ordinary nights unmother
me splendidly. I could turn myself inside out
if I wanted. In our yard, the tawny owl perches
in the cedars. A wild duck lays her eggs
in the boxwood. She sits in the half shadows
while we light a joint, its honeyed smoke
pulled into the night sky. O, these half-lives lived
each night. We are as we were, tough and hardy,
like the crabapple tree dropping its small gems.