If It’s Real

Late autumn afternoon sun
Through dust spots on house windows,
Turning the fake stucco blond,

A flycatcher stops hopping
Along the porch to study
Your shadow inside the walls,

Seems to decide you’re harmless,
And goes on hopping along.
Gold. The afternoon. Golden,

Soon to disappear, but so?
What if it’s real? This really
Is how dying goes for you,

An increasing frequency
Of pain in unpainted days,
A sense, not of loneliness,

But of fecklessness, the worth
Of the moment well-worshipped
As now as now worth nothing,

No reason at all, loose ends,
A sloppy demonic deal
With the devil for some peace

You needn’t lunge after, seize
Foolishly out of the air, since
Peace was always, sort of, there.