Evening Walk

In the first afternoon of daylight savings

we begin our walk, and clocks in homes

are shiny with touch, swallows

maked jagged trips round the house next door

where daily nests are hosed down.

We find loquats on the road, unripe

yellow bunches, and suck the juice,

throwing fat seeds in the street.

I hold bunches of wild fennel, rustling

and dry against my legs, a field of them

behind us, upside-down umbrellas.

When an ambulance passes we are caught

in its red glare and cannot go away,

or backwards. My husband watches

young men in uniform move arms up and down,

up and down on a man whose name

is Kerry, we see on the mailbox.

A woman waits nearby, body tilted tense

as a pitcher's before he sends a strike,

watching the catcher's hands for clues.

Along the street lights go on in homes

but not this one. My breath comes in a cry.

I won't watch this death.

The world's wrong, Shelley said,

and I know it, the woman holding herself

in the dark house knows it, the swallows know.

Opening our gate we hear bats above us

making milk in flight, with high-pitched

human cries. Oh, but there is effort: the arms

of young men moving to save an extra hour

of daylight, of life.