I make that cry noise learned from long gone
Frank the cat, when he wanted food.
The man rolls over on his right side, as requested.
When I mean lights out, I flick my hand.
We could go on for weeks without needing to speak.

At six A.M., there is this whole discussion
among the birds, while we, side-lying, doze.
Last night, after the play, he had recited 
all he remembered from Hamlet and Macbeth 
for the first time in two dozen years.
The far train murmured appreciation.

A blue light had slid from between 
the Venetian slats the first time, 
from a window on the same side 
of the bed as this one.
When I get up at seven, I try to remember
all this, to write it down.

But first, there is the flurry of finding the jumper cables
for the boy who left his lights on during the thunderstorm,
his father coming to the rescue yet again.

There are so few new surprises anymore.  Yet,
there he sat, a man on a high lifeguard perch,
waving, after my swim.

In the quarries of my youth, all residue filtered down
through the rocks to settle one hundred feet below.
Above, the black, deep, danger had been irresistible.