Third-quarter moon caught in the pines across the street,
its orange oblong knocked slightly to the right,
this afternoon’s demure crop of crocuses shut up for the night.

Beyond the frogs’ wee-hours din down in the creek,
one street over – bright, then gone, then bright –
comes the yellow flare of a house’s front hallway light.

A man’s voice rings out, bellowing complaint:
what he’s going to do – here his words are muffled – and what he ain’t
and a woman replies if he’ll just turn the other cheek

her friend will black his good eye, too, for in truth she’s no saint
either. I stand, held by the brawl that brought me out, under the quaint
scalloping of my front porch roof, my heart thudding, my silence replete.