Everyone has left and the lot is empty again, as vacant
as last night and the night before that.
I suppose it’s up to me
and the mosquitoes, straining at streetlights, to establish
residency, to settle the asphalt and the alleyways.
In the late hours, fog drifts in and silences
the last stray canine. This city finally sleeps without me.
Close by, the crickets whisper from the switchgrass,
asking their insect questions to the dark
and I listen since I have no place to be.
They ask who I am, what brought me
to this place of concrete, where my feet
will lead when the sun rises. This is their assembly.
I can’t answer anything with certainty
except that there’s an old house on the edge of town
I watch every night as the lights never go out. It’s hard
to swallow the sawdust lodged in my throat, to allow
myself to think I can still go home.