Laundered sheets, the night ahead,
my husband’s snoring is important.
He’s telling me a story in the dark
language and I listen lest I lose the thread.

I hear bumping in the attic
and am not afraid. It’s mice scuttling,
their sounds amplified at night. They’ll arrange
a nest in the drawer of my great aunt’s dresser.
Velvet, warm, amongst the hankies pale and frayed.

Coyotes punctuate our cricket field.
I prick my ears to hear them keen,
chins tilted towards the moon.

They morph to loons wailing in my head,
the couple low-slung in their shining
water bed. The striped collar, the scalloped
back, red eyes, bill for spearing fish.

I glimpse their chicks with downy frizz
huddled under mother’s wing
as plush and heated as this quilt
we nestle in. I count one, two,
three…four…I hear her tremolo…

My husband gasps with a start,
then resumes his snores. Perhaps he’s
dreaming of our old mower
stuck in the tall grass again.
I barely rest my hand on his chest.