Alone in the living room
Clean and bare legged,
I’m holding up my end of the bargain.

We always seem to meet this way,
In the quiet alien landscapes of familiar places after dark.
The day’s events have been embossed upon the air in double negative and committed to the house’s memory,
the subjects of future dreams for unknown sleepers.

What is it about the living room at night?
This place vibrates with implied movement, yesterday’s air has been spent and collected,
the new day’s fresh chaos has yet unsounded.
The quiet is so much deeper here in the in between.
It’s the quiet, then.
The quiet is what I’ve been seeking.

So I slow my breathing and wait.
We didn’t plan this, she and I. We never do.
If it is pitch dark early morning and I find myself waiting alone,
I know that I was called here,
That there is business to attend to.
She always shows eventually.

How have you been, she’ll ask.
I’ll take a moment to collect my thoughts.
It’s been far too long.