He of the Long Wait

Every morning he invited the windinto his open window. Then he would leanout and believing the trees were listening

would whisper, “Welcome back.” Hewanted the weeds to nod, the birdsto carry his breathing to their nests.

In the afternoon he sat in the theaterof sparrows, juncos, nuthatchesunder the loft and languid passing

of clouds and imagined applaudingthe man two doors down who walkedby with his three dogs. He loved

the ubiquity of time. In his basementhe had a puppet stage painted pale bluewith a crimson curtain where each night

the puppets—a rabbit in a beret, a molewith a walking stick, a man with a beardfull of nettles, and a woman holding

a golden basket of pears—talked abouttheir day. Then he went to sleep, the skydeepening behind the ceiling of stars.