An Autumn Evening from Childhood

Ten years old.
Lying in bed
a dog barking from somewhere
marking the territory of
dusk, the diurnal outlier.
Aware of earth's
quiet progress
I'm trying to fix the day before it turns.
But it's foxed, edges
blackened by the passage of time's engines,
lost to memory's register.

Waiting for sleep,
I listen to the slow considerations
of a distant train
over by Stanage.
Struggling with gravity
a conversation with the welkin
punctuated by mis-step and slip.
Discourse resumes
as sheets press against my legs
the counterpaine's
unseen freight.

It was then the voices began
downstairs.
A discussion growing reckless
a night train gone rogue and disorderly
adrift along the timetable's margins.
Something low resonated like an idling diesel
A whistle shrieked among wreckage.
Volume rose like a difficult job
Until the door slammed.
Then a sighed deflation, air from brakes
workday arrangement of furniture
as the house settled again to shadows.

The dog barked, marked as normal
the mutability of territory.









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