These are French footprints,
leaving the road north of Beauvais,
disappearing into a Norman wood.
Boot size and tread say—a man.

This broad plank of a table,
wood warped and wavy,
pitches the most familiar things —
cups, bowls, my orange thermos —

There are four of them: two solid sorrel horses,
and two spotted goats.

Some permutation of patterns is always grazing
side by side. Or sometimes playing—

Tonight the wind will not let
The trees sleep.

Branches to the ground,
The few squat evergreens
Sway through the meadow

Don’t you ever get lonely, he asked.
I understand, I don’t like people either
but sometimes, he said, I just need them.

When I walk past the adoption cages,
each dog makes a case to be the chosen,
with a bark, a jumping up, some raucous
reason to be recognized and singled out.

Tonight, I stood outside, named the stars
you’d named for me. Dug out maps
that told you how to go. My actions,
you once said, let those stand for me.

trespass quietly
to smell the end of summer
in the sundown trees
and lunchbox rust