WALKING THE DOG IN THE DARK

What rustles is wider in the dark           
than the route of animals or pale of leaves.
In the dark, we're missing while we walk,       

seeing then losing the gray-chalked    
moon. Full, it retreats like an ache or fever;       
what remains of ache is wider than dark.       

I think of my father: I told my mistakes
to his headstone its 25th year. I had turned 50.
In the dark, we're missing while we walk.       

The dog pulls at the end of her lead, taking
the scent of fur, wind without ease—           
copper leaves rustle in the places of dark.   
   
Leaves falling multiply leaves. A solo birch   
is a blank verse between moon and empty street;
in the dark, we’re missing while we walk.       

At the end of the moon there is another arc,
another hour. Walking, I think of being       
no one’s daughter. What rustles is wide in the dark.       
In the dark, we’re missing as we walk.

Laurie Lamon's work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, New Criterion, Ploughshares, Arts & Letters Journal of Contemporary Culture, Plume, and other magazines and journals, including 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Ordinary Days, edited by Billy Collins, and the Poetry Daily and Verse Daily websites. In 2007 she received a Witter Bynner award, selected by Poet Laureate Donald Hall.