The Book Club

The nightly flow of cars and street-side talk was so
routine that when the nightbird turned its head and flew,
it took a while to notice. Then silence fell upon us like a kiss.
With a joyful heart I walked out and heard anew
the wren's mute song, the fox's vacant burrow
and every roadwork abandoned. That solitary night was bliss.
But the nightbird turned again and soon the stoic lice
that gathered in the rafters raised a sudden rebel voice
above the usual whisper of their ancient housebound ghosts,
robins cried blue murder from the flickering lampposts
that thrummed like swarming bees, the ungodly
din of mothwings rang from wall to crumbling wall, and finally
I tiptoed through my door and scratched a scream inside the lock
until the breaker's rush of blood from a migraine's ragnarok
fed-back by that same rush of blood that snapped my tongue up tight,
and when at last they came for me, a single knock was all it took.