Betsy’s drunk on beer and moonlight.
She’s forgotten her shirt somewhere
else, perhaps in Todd’s Volvo, or the shadows
of Aunt India’s empty summer home.
Insects crawl, buzz, swarm around the grass,
confused with a jumble of bottles and croquet stuff.

I’m watching Betsy stuff
her pockets full of moonlight,
watching her stumble in the grass,
thinking, somewhere,
her parents are home,
asleep in the shadows

of a torn mosquito net, the shadows
of another daughterless 3:00am, the stuff
they don’t talk about at dinner. Home
for Betsy is another story. She dances in the moonlight--
She’s found her place, her somewhere:
cool earth and the twitchy grass.

The grass,
the shadows
this is somewhere,
right? The stuff:
the trees, bare skin, booze, and moonlight,
this is her home.

It’s late. I should be getting home,
trudging through the grass
in my sandals, leaving Betsy to the moonlight
and shadows,
the broken, scattered stuff
she hides somewhere

under slapdash makeup, somewhere
she can’t stay. I wanna say, Come home,
Betsy. We’ll figure out this stuff
with your folks. My mom’ll wash the grass
stains out of your pants, too. You can’t see ‘em, you know, ‘cause of the shadows,
but if you step into the moonlight…

I don’t. I’m shaky, confused with a jumble of bottles and croquet stuff, somewhere,
And the moonlight felt like home just weeks before,
but not on this grass, not in the shadows of this night.