Suburban Nocturne

By Joseph Hesch

Out here, the robins wake me,
going off pre-dawn,
like feathered versions of
the trash collector-bumped car alarms
In the city never could.
Last night, I had to shut
my bedroom window and my drowsy mind
to the screams
of some unknown animal in the jaws
of a nocturnal predator
or maybe in the paws
of furry rapture.
Either way, its plaintive cries set
my teeth on edge and my thoughts
to R-rated dismemberment.
Will I ever become so inured
to the natural sirens of the suburban night
that I was the mechanical howls
of the never-sleeping city?
Some evenings here near the woods
I would trade the all chirps, croaks
and fluffy retorts for the clangs, owooos,
and muzzle reports of my little place
near the home of Ladder Company 23.