VOYEUR
It happened the day I woke unusually early
to take out the dog and the green grass
was steeping still in its wet dew and
the worms were making love in the rich humus
of the raised bed we had built out back only weeks
before, writhing like they were in agony, dying
I supposed at first on this brilliant morning and then
there were more around my toes, as if the whole earth
could seethe with the tumultuousness of love
or, living underground, perhaps they were only
swinging throughout the hedonistic night until
the raucousness ended in utter exhaustion,
strangers stuck sleeping inside one another, glued
side by side in some translucent jelly, their heads
or tails or both slowly sinking back into the soil
as if they didn’t know the moon serenade was over,
or maybe they didn’t care I was standing there, sleep
in my eyes, the dawn lifting like a blanket off a bed.