A man alone in a midnight tavern

a hundred miles out of Paris

thinks of a dancer

in Carcassonne

a Sunday stabbing

in Place Pigalle

hears wind gaining through the Marne

the evening’s unmapped road

of truant voices

insomniacs and drunks pilfering

their own sleep

mandolins lighting ballads in unlit corners

and his mother

rising in her youthful years

from a night swim

in the Susquehanna

looking for a way home

through a darkened field