On Night Watch

the moon over my shoulder is already half-lit

i turn my hand palm-up it fills with starlight

flying squirrels scold in an ethereal key

i’m sitting beneath their favorite mother oak

i take a deep breath of autumn soil fragrance

a whitetail buck grunts more as if in pain than in lust

there’s a thunder of hooves then nothing

a dead leaf drops into my hand

the trees continue their strategic withdrawal