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PJ
Nights
pen
your glyphs in the crook of my arm
under a down swept sun, we are as strangers
to our molecules to atoms formed
in the hearts of stars and supernovae we run
in long wavelengths through Sundays
along highways behind the rain — these occasions
stun me with their fast gracelessness, tangle civilities
as night tangles the leaves best we navigate
the beat of the sea the book of its shoals
best we raid the pantry cupboard for tins
of crabmeat and sardines we’d bellycrawl
through rows of our kitchen garden, pluck at a purpling
patch of chives, unburden Burpee's Big Girl
of her heavy reddened fruit these things
all these things for a meal of permanance
an unquiet night on wind-dried sheets
the sea's
first cousin
a little remains dangling, splash of wild
in flowers and fish scale roofs, a moonchild –
to see clearly one must cross a frontier
cross the street, visit the chocolatier
to a door that knows everything
from your eyes – listen to songs of redwings
wait for me, the stars; I've something to say
taking street lamps hostage, picking bouquets
I’m impatient for the river to flow
by my door delivering a boat to row
so I don't have to walk far to escape –
Scheherezade will tell my story, shape
her sister’s while I recline by the pond
watching frogs, goldfish, comedy beyond
the burned night and tragic morning endings
skip my kisses, write your own stories, sing
without ever seeing dawn light coming
I missed them, too, the dead with hands stroking
our midnight prayers; they knew and I’m sorry
I slept before writing their history
little by little I’m changing into
cold castles and decaying stories through
moss grown towers – so sweet skies filling my
chest with this rare air, frescoing blue my
thirsty skin
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PJ Nights lives in the wild and
ravishing state of Maine. She edits the quarterly poetry journal
“from east to west: bicoastal verse”, teaches physics, and
stargazes. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Ocho, Blue
Fifth Review, Animus, Wicked Alice, Slow Trains, andwerve, and
Centrifugal Eye. |
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