Closing

4:47 AM.

The numbers on the cabin clock glow green
for the last time in our watch.

Outside, the lake holds its breath between night and morning.
I dress in yesterday’s clothes,
step out into air so familiar it hurts.

The canoe slips through mist like a needle through silk.

Each paddle stroke a goodbye,
each ripple a small erasure.

I’ve made this circle around the point a thousand times.
This is the last.

Breakfast smoke rises from the chimney.
Bacon, coffee, the ordinary sacraments we won’t know to miss until we do.

The kids argue over who gets the last pancake.
Let them.
Tomorrow, they’ll wish they could.

Here’s the moment that will return uninvited for years.

Standing in the toolshed, 2 PM light falling across the workbench grain,
my father’s handwriting on labels:
“boat motor oil,” “spare fuses,” “miscellaneous necessary things.”

My hand on his hammer,
knowing I’ll leave it for the new people.

Tools grow into their places, marry themselves to particular shelves.
This place shaped the handle to his grip.

Sixty years of summer repairs, winter preparations.

I add my own label: “House tools. Please be kind to them.”

Late afternoon inventory.

Loons counted, clouds categorized, waves recorded in the ledger of memory.

The sun performs its daily vanishing act behind the same island
that swallowed all our previous suns,
but this time I pay attention to the exact angle,
the precise color of its leaving.

We eat dinner on the porch, nobody mentioning tomorrow.
The keys wait on the counter like a confession.

I walk the property line one more time,
touching trees like old friends.

In bed, listening to the house settle into its bones,
I understand my grandfather’s last letter:
“The hardest part isn’t leaving but knowing while you’re still there.”

The loons call.
The clock ticks.

Somewhere in the future, I’m already trying to remember
if there were two calls or three,
if the wind was from the north.

Both listeners are me.

Both nights are this one.