The opened windows pale pillars of air,
sheets of sound ushered night through a fine mesh,

thin gauze of metal between us and all that moved,
sang for its life in the dark.    Locust, cricket, nightjar—

calls and warnings flung out and answered,
echoes to carry us past knowing to enter our bones

each night and thrum there yes, yes—you, too,
we know. In her bed my sister shifted underneath

the chatter. Every answered and unanswerable
thing wove us together and the same questions

kept us apart    cocooned in what we could not tell,
didn’t even know to tell. Owls and katydids

entered the colloquy pond frogs preached
their rumbly songs.    Downstairs, our parents moved

through a different night toward a morning
we knew nothing of, and our brothers rolled

and sighed in day beds against the TV room walls,
the sunburst clock glinting faint gold right below us.

We sailed in the black black branches of the old
cherry tree they slept at its base where bridal wreath

branches crowded and windows reached to the worn
wood floor. At last it was all breath—our damp

lungs expanding like clouds, our dreams’ questions
threaded through songless grubs the hush of grass.