I stood at the window,
phone to my ear, the conversation
nothing special, cat arched
and purring under my hand.
One Canada goose, flying low,
its sudden sound a rusty creak
over the roof of the house
like something swinging open
after years. I never saw
the goose, though I crouched
and looked hard upwards through that window.
I don't know whether it flew alone
or was part of some formation, first
flock of the southbound season.
But what its sound opened did not close
and I felt the directional pull of migration,
the days shorter, trees going autumn
and meaning it, and me
left behind, without formation,
the same conversation on the same
phone over and over, looking hard
into that empty blue October sky.