Smoke that behaves like insects, insects that behave like smoke: Dave Bonta's "Encore" begins by blurring the line between them. On a warm night the speaker listens to the last chirping and trilling creatures, then remembers an odd moment from the day, when a dead leaf seemed to wave at him. He waved back. The poem's central idea is that endings don't have to be met with lament. The things that are dying keep performing, and the decent response is to acknowledge them, lightly and without fuss.
The opening image does a lot in four lines. "Insects of smoke / slick as silkworms" turns wisps into living things, and the silkworm comparison adds a second thought. Silkworms spin cocoons, and the poem says these creatures are "weaving their own / winding sheets." A winding sheet is an old word for a burial shroud, so spinning and shrouding become the same act. The soft, repeated *w* sounds of "weaving" and "winding" make the phrase feel like thread being drawn out. The poem never says where the smoke comes from, which keeps the image slippery. It looks alive and is already vanishing.
The next lines let the word "them" slide. "A warmish night brings / them out again" could still refer to the smoke, but by the next couplet it has moved to creatures "that still chirp / those that still trill." The repetition of "still" is the poem's quiet drumbeat, and the imagery suggests a late season, though the poem doesn't say so. Then comes the deflating shrug: "out of sheer habit / by now i suppose." Bonta refuses to flatter the insects. Their song may not be brave or beautiful, only routine. This is where the title fits. An encore is a performance given after the show is officially over, and it can be heartfelt or merely automatic. The poem leaves both possibilities open.
The turn comes with "i remember one of / today's enigmas." It is a funny, offhand way to describe a day, as a set of small puzzles. The puzzle itself is told in comic slow motion: "i was waved at / by a dead leaf // attached to an unrelated / dead tree." The passive construction gives the leaf the initiative, and the speaker is simply the one who gets greeted. The word "unrelated" is the deadpan joke. It hangs at the end of its line and suggests the leaf has no business on that tree, though the poem doesn't explain. Both leaf and tree are dead, and the wave is still, in the speaker's word, "jaunty." Wind is the obvious explanation, but the poem doesn't mention it. It lets the gesture stand as a gesture.
The form supports this casual tone. There are nine couplets with no rhyme and no punctuation, and the "i" is lowercase, so the poem reads like a thought typed out at night. The lines often break on small, unglamorous words ("one of," "an unrelated"), which makes the sentences stumble forward as if the speaker is working things out as he goes. The sound is delicate. The first half is full of hushing *s* sounds, in "smoke," "slick," "silkworms," "sheets," "sheer" and "suppose," which suits the smoky, whispery scene. The ending is plainer and more direct. "Wave" appears twice, once as a noun and once as a verb, so the last couplet is the only one built around an exchange between two parties.
That final line holds the poem's character. "Of course i returned it" is courteous, unembarrassed and a little absurd. It treats a dead leaf's greeting as an ordinary social obligation. The poem offers no consolation, no promise of renewal, and no speech about mortality, even though shrouds, dead leaves and dying sound are all in it. Instead it shows a manner for living among endings, which is to stay attentive, keep a sense of humor, and answer what greets you. The poem is small enough to be an encore itself, a few extra lines after the main business of the day, and it works for the same reason the insects do. Whatever the motive, something is still offered, and someone listens.