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.
