Before Dark

On a late summer’s eve when my neighbor

sits on her back porch and plays the accordion,

I open all of the bedroom windows

and waltz around my room, humming

Lady of Spain and After the Ball.

I can’t let her see how much I enjoy

the way her songs drift through the trees.

She would take flight if she saw me,

saying she hadn’t played in years,

saying her fingers are getting old,

shaking them out in front of her

as if they were removed from her body.

She is bashful as the white-tailed deer

who come to feed in our backyards,

diaphanous as souls of the newly dead

who arrive by starlight to eat the apples,

roses, and tulips in the land of the living,

that moment when the hills lift the pine

one last time before dark.