Car Door

Some people cannot bear to be alone

those people are missing the point

today I was alone, gloriously

 

the kitchen thirstily drank in the flaming light

of this Indian Summer

an Indian Summer that had waited, calmly

to announce itself in the depths of October

 

I got drunk on the sweetness of that unexpected sunshine

saw myself stretched in carnival shadows

along warm carpet and across our dozing, ginger cat

 

it was a world without wind and I stared

at those tall reaching trees, daring them to sway

at the high brazen nettles in the field

at the wide, sharp, long grass

I stared but the only moving thing was me

alive in a painting

 

I nursed a cup of coffee, tasting it in my nostrils and on my tongue

I watched two concerts from our rocking chair

a rocking chair borne of my father’s mind

hewn by his carpenter’s hands

twenty years before he found me

 

with aching swoons and orange moons

Scott Matthews took me away before

 

James Brown brought me back

as he and I stomped our feet and grunted in duet

across miles of time and life and death

 

these alone days, still, shimmering Indian Summer days

breezeless, empty, full days

that lead me to wonder

if life can get much better than this

 

then

 

I hear a car door open on the driveway