The moon comes knocking on our door;
a slavish stalker who hangs around all night.
The slowest of walkers, he matched
at an equal distance each of our homeward steps.

We close our door on him, push him out
only to find he’s already skirted the house,
taken the side alley, slipped the padlocked gate,
jumped the flowerpots and several four foot pines
and is staring fixedly through our unlit bedroom windows.

He’ll watch all night, like this, through
his scarf of cloud, the broken drape;
while we count faceless sheep
he waits. He holds the hours we conflate.

The night marked down to his pin-point satisfaction
he lets us go though we’ll never know
at what thin hour he left.
It’s been this way all month.