Low Pressure Area

The dogs have crept in
through the unlatched door
and gather, one on each side of my chair,
demanding hands  
meant to be busy with words.
They are insistent—a reminder
that there is life
in the real world as well.

 I scratch ears and bellies and tails.
Whiskers I pulled out of the little dog at the beach,
thinking they were sea urchin spines,
have grown back in again.
They are so foreign in his soft pelt
that I forgive myself for earlier cruelties.

It is an oddity,
having dogs inside the house—
the youngest one still
not quite to be trusted,
yet the comfort of two companions wins out
and they settle as though it is a normal thing.
The wind stirs the areca palms outside my window,
waves them like tattered flags
behind the reflected immovability
of the fragile spiral lamp
reflected in the window glass.

Friends gone.
Just we three.
And it is so dark, so dark.
The fan stirs invisible currents
that seem to comfort us all with their presence—
the hum of the blades
a mantra we share.

Suddenly, this night is different,
as though a new channel
has switched on in my brain—
a new pattern for living,
or perhaps it is just the barometer,
doing whatever barometers do
to lift a mood.

The prompt today is to write a nocturne.