You might say hour by hour
is how day moves closer to the mouth
of night. The soft early hours, your feet
touching the cold bathroom tile. Acidity
of coffee that hits your gut before you even start
the drip. Midday, pulling your tasks toward you
like pine needles raked into a pile
at the edge of your yard. Briefly, you think
the mist has cleared enough to show a bit of blue
in the sky. Then noon comes with a snort and a whinny,
saying to hell with your lists and good
intentions. Surely there's some kind of trick, like the one
designers recommend, where you hang mirrors in all
shapes and sizes on the walls of your too-
small rooms to create the impression of space?
Love can make you fearful and love can make you
brave. Now it is the hour when you sit like a slug
in a velvet armchair, feeling the ache
of your softness. But you will not cast salt into the garden
so it might wound other beings. Hour by hour we move
into the sudden swallow of dark. Hour by hour
we wait until it spits us out again.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
