It's so quiet it's almost frightening; in the tawny biscuit color of evening, great green

leaf clusters lean in at us, a windchime across the street speaks up

a blue scale and down. A child goes by on a bicycle, whizzing. Then two students

in sneakers, nudging each other.

But here we are nearly immobile. Huge mattresses of silence slide out under our bodies

and lift us, and float across the lawn as if we'd been hollowed out, drawn

into thin filaments of ourselves, vague faces listening

like automatic antennae quivering . . .

At nine o'clock, ten o'clock, it's still bright and suddenly menacing: a fast car

suddenly whisks by

as Sentinel Hill looks down over its shoulders at the shadows beginning to slip

between houses: in the mild lion light of summer

on porches all over town

the people next door pop in and out unexpectedly, they run errands

all day long but now nothing, after a quick

juicy giggle, the slow dying-away fall of a low voice on the corner, some stranger

saying good night, the quietness spreads out everywhere, when everyone disappears

in summer, after work where do they go?

Sitting quietly on their porches

or asleep, no longer present any more than the leaves bowing

and nodding absently to each other,

for all the brain's endless intercellular whisperings,

strands of protein rustling and waving back and forth like wheat,

the mind in its windy armchair murmuring barely believes in itself:

as slow water drops from the dark lavender petunias

in their K-Mart pots above us,

high overhead, in the black backyards of space, cerebral circuits flash

and babble to themselves, lonely

as far-off satellites, blind sparks blinking, signaling across the night