the last person to bed

we get my aunt's old car towed 
& in the process, it turns into an elephant.
she hasn't driven it for almost a decade 
but it still feels like hers. 
neither me or the tow truck man 
have any idea what to do with the creature. 
she wanders off & he pays me anyway.
he says, "some things are best not retold." 
on my block, i pride myself on being
the last person to fall asleep.
lights in each house close like great eyes
in the distance. i sit on the porch,
hungry for july. to be sleeping in the soup
with onion skins & a great bay leaf.
instead it is the quiet spring. lately, i have
been dueling this the house on the ridge.
i can only see the roof from down where i am
in the crease of the hill. the lights stay on
later & later. i wonder if they have 
an elephant too or an aunt or a car
that needs to be taken away. i consider the distance,
a two-minute walk, & how i do not
& will not take it. i do not know their names
or what they're waiting for. i imagine
they are like me, trying to squeeze the quiet 
from the day. drink in the brief hum
only the dark can offer. if i did go up there
i would not ask them to let me be the last to bed.
instead, i would say, "you be the elephant tonight."
sometimes i let them win. shut my last light off
while theirs is still slicing the shadows
like a knife through a black tomato. 
my rooster calls to the moon. hears the neighbors
moving in the moon glow. the earth is muddy
from all the melted snow & all the hurried rain.
i see deer prints at the edge of the yard.
elephant prints too. i wonder if they end up
in the neighbor's yard. if they have an aunt
who has died or maybe an elephant.
all the bones. so much more than you think.
the car gone. the night, carried away.