from

nightwalking

LOONSONG

Out into the cold
a loon calls to its mate.

Steam rises on the water.
I think of my father misting the window

of the old green Chevrolet with scraps
of Nat King Cole and Velvet Fog

on the long drive to the nursing home.
We earn the ache that waits for us

long past the final note.
The moon blows back a brassy chord

on the pond's black skin.

Reprinted

from nightwalking

Copyright ©

by Joel B. Peckham, Jr.

originally published in
Many Mountains Moving