On afternoons when you are not 
parked behind the house, 
and the grass gone to seed 
shows a ragged defiance 
to the day, 

I bow my head in your direction, 
shyly nod towards the there 
where you are not. 

Hello, I say, not speaking, 
to the windows' cubist vision of me, 
to the porch's radiant tunnel,
and that sly feathering jubilance of grass.

It's not that I mind it when you are there, 
but when you're not,
that space where you are not,
only has eyes for me.