notes from home

Things are piling up here and my homework hasn't even made it out of the bag.  The boy is gone, I don't know where, and I'm glad because I do know he's not in his bedroom playing some electronic something.  The last I saw of him he asked about duct tape and rubber bands and then disappeared out the garage door.

Quiet, the kind of quiet that lets in the background -- the soundtrack -- that sometimes fades in the wake of daily stuff.  I keep thinking I might put on some music but instead I'm wondering about the smell of the screen door in the rain.  I'm listening to the rain peck at the awning, the sound of occasional dog pacing; little clicks over hardwood, and the birds -- always the birds and now the swelling of their evening song.