Something Like We Did IV

Space is the place.
—Sun Ra

Wind in the leaves
of the live oak next door

and the June bugs
click-click

hard bodies
hitting the screen.


Couldn’t tell how much
time had passed.

Light from traffic
on the ceiling.

Late   that sound
in the sky   soft.


Thinking out loud
then inside my head:

they were still there—
the way they walked

that bright flicker
in their chests.


Sometimes I have believed

I don’t belong
here—   I mean

it’s not just
the American insanities

but everywhere: the sense
of having been left

on Earth
with no explanation—

a mouse dropped in a maze

Source: Poetry (September 2023)