If it’s true that everything comes around,
I imagine I’ll die under the needle feet
            of a thousand bow-legged crickets,
those I’ve killed this summer
in the still corners of the bedroom
and around the bed. With what determination
I hover in the shadows,
a lover haunting a lie.

This year we allowed them
right to our edges,
our outer limits,
beneath the summerhouse furniture,
where they taunt, rasping the thin peace
with irritating song.
The cricket slips soundlessly into a crack.

Naked, magazine in fist,
I crouch, pause.
You sleep toward the wall,
breathing the indifferent breath of dreams,
and despite the night heat, I shiver.
I’m not the person I hoped I would be.