And then

And then tonight all the haunted landscape was a wash of dim colors I know no names for. I ached for you, then. The sun vanishing into the tatters of mist. Another day moving quietly away from me.

"Someone has to go home early from the party," he said, "And someone has to stay behind and clean up."

I know this may seem oblique. But I am reaching as directly as I know how.

Can you really doubt, at this time of day? Level shadows reach to the horizon, and a gathering cloud of starlings turns, topples, divides into two, and comes back together again.

I have asked, and offered.