It is late afternoon: an inclined shed against your fence,

bay window opening to an immaculate lawn,

the lampshade in your kitchen beside a lonely pantry.

We take a walk in the shadow of an Atlantic storm;

you face elsewhere: to the improbable, the clock,

always turning to a seesaw, the park bench an anathema:
it’s for old cinders, you say, and drunks (or the assimilated –

as if all difference can be sieved out, unless, of course,

it’s put through acid or diluted on an ingredients label.)

In shadow, it’s about indifference, the unreluctant quiet;

not the way a yellow leaf falls upon another leaf.

We carry on through the first drops of rain, 
and, instead of naming, I persevere; and before long, resolute,

I see the lawn imperfect, the shed restored, a swallow

sweep into the disappearing sky.