Away

 

I’m in bed, hearing

my parents’ footsteps on the landing.

then in my room.

They have not come to tuck me in

but, together, pass through the wall

and out into the night.

I cry, go to the window;

a full-moon night

but they are nowhere;

not in the sky

nor in the garden below;

they are gone.

The moon and night,

fields and hedges all have life;

my parents have gone to them.

It is inexplicable,

but so is the room and so is sadness;

and what is the child?

Years later, trying to hear

the sound of those footsteps again;

a different room in a different place;

the tune they made refuses to form;

easier to look out the window,

travel after them into their infinity.