last night

Last night the wind blew in through the open window warm and salty betraying the desert.  Dragged across the salt grass that rings the lake it brought the idea of rain.  

The thin reeds of the blinds billowing like the sails of a ghost ship.  Whistling with the same slow cadence of the buttoned canvas cover over the boat as it rocked in the night on the waters of Lake Powell.   

A sound from deep inside my childhood.  Swirling with the smell of sunscreen and the sunlight making lighting bolts in the waves.  Sweet, but not enough to rest in.

I lay listening to the night.  Sleep ignoring the judgment of the street lights and the shadows.  

I rolled over with the darkness that never falls in the city.  The wind cooling with the hours.  It rattled the trees and they patted the house gently.  Somewhere off in the distance the real storm mounting.  The promise of the true end of a long hot summer.

I looked out into my room to the outline of this life here with him.  All the edges he neatly wrapped in blankets of wood.  The soft corners and raw lines.  Strong, but not enough to sleep in.

Then the wind died down.  It blew without making noise.  I listened to the dog slip into the kitchen for a drink.  I listened to the trains, to the trucks, to the cats creeping.  

I listened to his breathing in the bed beside me broken and big like the mountains.

Last night blew in restless and open across a long-dead lake.
The morning broke in the backfield without waking the rooster... or me.   
I was already wide awake waiting to see her come.