Aubades 1-4

for Owen

1

Not even 5am and a woman yelping hoarse    Ah-     Ah-     ah’s    — then veering east, down maybe Cambridge Street,her meaning lost under    icy bushes or behind strewn garbage bins.Sometimes I don’t let my arms reach              across to you.

2

The ringing and then something chewing        through Phyllis’ pre-dawn voice    until “surgery” and “iodine and—” swallow the line.                She is calling over dark waters and I am trying    to row faster but this oar is so heavy.

3

There are questions I wouldn’t try    to haul in the light  because the weight we’d take on—.The blue blink of the clock    — time says it doesn’t know when I am.

4

Maybe 3 or 4 in the morning and a cat        caught in the first snow—I startle awake    still childless—mewling for hours at someone’s side door.So many things not taken care ofand the next night I have to beginlistening all over again.