What Remains

Day rolls over, 
pulling at the covers of dusk. 
Lights come on in sequence 
and before they go off 
dogs find their voices, 
children lean toward supper 
hardly aware of the steam 
of mashed potatoes, 
the color of carrots and peas. 
Fingers flip locks into safe, 
boxed places where darkness 
descending means little or nothing. 

Is it slow closure 
that renders dusk senseless 
and immaterial 
except for what remains of the day—
automatic preparations: 
placing of feet, hands, heads 
in the proper attitude of sleep? 
Who, what will inform us 
that this nightfall 
may be the final dusk 
from which sleepers will awaken? 

It’s a poverty everyone carries 
in a dark pouch 
folded between the plastic 
and the cash—an alienation 
and loneliness 
that forces hindsight, 
only to say what’s gone before, 
how this or that enthralled us, 
how we endured 
such and such annoyances.