29 February 2020

By Philip Kuepper

Evening nears.
I walk hunched against the chill.
A flock of geese flies low as the treetops.
Their calling haunts the air of my soul,
as they call evening ever closer.

This is the tenuous hour,
where day begins to end,
night begin.

I walk hunched against the hour’s chill.
The minutes go through me to the bone.
Time gnaws at my bones, time worried
it won’t get to bury me as its own.

A dog has appeared, out of nowhere,
to walk at my side.
‘Hi, boy,’
or is it girl?
Who is to know what spirits accompany us.
or in what form,
through what time is given us?

The dog ambles off
up an alley I do not take.
Nearer the river now,
brine colognes the air.
And, there, in the water, like a whisper,
evening unfurls its sail of grey
to cover the world with a tenderness
even a kiss would scar.

(12 October 2019)