I came home last night to find that my

laptop had crawled up onto the table

in anticipation of my being there,

and the piano light had switched itself on,

and two eggs had cracked themselves

into a skillet on the stove. It was odd

because I never make eggs for dinner,

but beyond that it was kind of nice.

Kind of nice to know that things,

like dogs, grow fond and want

to be had, to be used, to be played.

I stood in the emptying window light,

my shirtfront swelling with gratitude.

I was just about to say something aloud

to the contents of my house, something

grand and at the same time tender, when

the first word caught

in my throat. I stood there alone

till at last a chair I hadn’t known about

nudged the backs of my knees

and a dusty Kleenex sneezed itself out

of a nearby box I hadn’t put there. Had

I slept, I might have dreamed of rocking

gently under the stars on a ship whose

crew was foreign, whose maps

were thumbed in sand on deck each morning.

My mantel clock rang out a warning,

and later I found this poem at the back door,

looking softly up at me and wagging

its little tail.