I.
By night, the dogs' kingdom: warning yawps
Stretched across darkness, unapproachable.
Occasionally the clamor of a truck
Passed by, or from the highway wheels
Screamed on tarmac. A place of furnished yards,
Swing-sets, locked sheds, pristine lawns.
Moths bounced by devious blue lanterns,
Struck and thumped like dropped acorns,
Fluttered and died, about every hundred feet
That crackling, seductive glimmer.
All doors were bolted, blinds drawn.
Deltas of shadow thrown by tousled trees
Curled in rain gutters, probed weathervanes
Mounted near the taut guy-wires
Of unwavering antennae. Tiled roofs
Bore the weather on their scalloped
Slopes, secured the sleepers under them.
A child, I sat in the boughs of an old maple
And saw them, in strict order, like soldiers
Ready to uproot themselves and march.
II.
There was something about the silence
Of closed garages, like faces in sleep,
Something in the way fences explained
What they were keeping in and keeping out
Better by starlight. In packs we wandered,
Hiding cigarette ends, those telling lights,
Behind our palms, observed by owls
Perched in trees like judges, eyes like ingots,
Or down the back roads, under telephone
Poles erratically orbited by bats.
Half-hearted delinquency set us
Standards of conduct, left the world
Safe and at a distance. Our eyes
Meddled at dimly lit curtains, pried
Furtively for a breech, a glimpse of some
Coveted girl in dishabile that never
Was seen, nor even sought in earnest;
But dogs were king, pacing their beats,
Keeping the peace. We pensively returned
To private rooms, Ataris, quilted beds.
By night, the dogs' kingdom: warning yawps
Stretched across darkness, unapproachable.
Occasionally the clamor of a truck
Passed by, or from the highway wheels
Screamed on tarmac. A place of furnished yards,
Swing-sets, locked sheds, pristine lawns.
Moths bounced by devious blue lanterns,
Struck and thumped like dropped acorns,
Fluttered and died, about every hundred feet
That crackling, seductive glimmer.
All doors were bolted, blinds drawn.
Deltas of shadow thrown by tousled trees
Curled in rain gutters, probed weathervanes
Mounted near the taut guy-wires
Of unwavering antennae. Tiled roofs
Bore the weather on their scalloped
Slopes, secured the sleepers under them.
A child, I sat in the boughs of an old maple
And saw them, in strict order, like soldiers
Ready to uproot themselves and march.
II.
There was something about the silence
Of closed garages, like faces in sleep,
Something in the way fences explained
What they were keeping in and keeping out
Better by starlight. In packs we wandered,
Hiding cigarette ends, those telling lights,
Behind our palms, observed by owls
Perched in trees like judges, eyes like ingots,
Or down the back roads, under telephone
Poles erratically orbited by bats.
Half-hearted delinquency set us
Standards of conduct, left the world
Safe and at a distance. Our eyes
Meddled at dimly lit curtains, pried
Furtively for a breech, a glimpse of some
Coveted girl in dishabile that never
Was seen, nor even sought in earnest;
But dogs were king, pacing their beats,
Keeping the peace. We pensively returned
To private rooms, Ataris, quilted beds.
