This house creaks
like it can’t find a comfortable place to settle into.
I toss and turn
and can’t find a comfortable spot to sleep in.
My clock says 2:18 a.m.
I get out of bed and sit at a window.
The sky has cleared
and the moon sits high in the sky
like a pearl button.
Stars—bright, cold, voiceless—
are winking, but I know that’s because Earth’s heat is rising,
the atmosphere is shifting.
(A future astronaut needs to know these things.)
I wonder if Earth winked at the Apollo 8 astronauts
when they took its picture from the moon on Christmas Eve.
Something moves in the next yard.
A dog, dark and fuzzy, leaps in the moonlit snow.
Then one sharp whistle from the neighbor’s house
calls it inside.