by Gregory Orr
There aren’t that many pages left.
I’m getting nervous; what if
the author means to surprise me
by leaving the last twenty blank?
Now all sounds disturb me:
embers letting fall on the hearth
their heavy gray petals;
cattle outside, tearing the grass
with their teeth; and close by,
the screech of the luminous
insect trapped in the lightbulb.
-from The Red House
