The cat waits at the window
for your thin figure striding up the walk,
hole in jeans at the knee,
crisp blue shirt I too like to wear,
baseball cap harboring gray hair the barber butchered.

The great horned owl calls at dusk,
a ventriloquist—out in our pines or miles away?
I strew dishes in the sink, squint
at the World Series from your recliner.

I got to bed. It's quiet. You're not playing
zombie on the other pillow, slack-jawed,
with a glassy-eyed death stare.
I'll save you the Times article on Afghanistan.

I slip out to the dark porch, hear the owl again.
He's courting at this time of year. Any night now
she'll flirt back, six hoots to his five.
She'll brood eggs by December.

The cat trounched his catnip-flavored mouse,
boozed around in it, dozed belly-up.
Your voice husky, elated in last night's call:
ravens hoarse and rowdy in the canyon,
swooping and somersaulting in the abyss.

On our first date, you played a wolf howls cassette
in your old Isuzy, We drove, transfixed, for half an hour.
Your hand reached for mine,
your other steady at the wheel.

Your hands were smooth for a man's, your nails
impeccable, like the interior of that old Isuzu.
You say you'll be delayed the next three days.
In bed, the cat's frame leans against mine.
I strain to hear the owls. The moon is tin.