LATE

Given the circumstances
If I stay up until 3 or so, like as not
Some poem will wander up the steps
To knock very quietly at the door.
Bound elsewhere, perhaps not mine to write
Looking for a kind word, an apple,
Perhaps a cheese sandwich, Velveeta
With tomatoes. My father would be
Wide awake at this hour, like his mother.
I am not native to the night but stay there
On sufferance. I leave the poem asleep
Slumped over its food; if morning
Finds it here still maybe we'll see just what
The two of us can make of each other.