Happy Tuesday, friends! I hope you enjoyed your weekend.
Last night, around 3:30 in the morning, I woke up and laid in bed, thinking about a poetry chapbook I started months ago and hoped to finish soon for those looming contest deadlines. While thinking about what I wanted that collection to be, how I imagined it feeling as a collection, I started writing this poem.
It isn’t finished, and for once I’m struggling with a title (which usually comes to me first!), but it feels really good to be writing, and to have something to put toward a collection that means a lot to me.
What are you working on this week? Or, what project have you set aside that would mean a lot to have a chance to pick back up? Strive this week for what has been eluding you: a project, a subject, a deadline, anything! Write!
NIGHTLIGHT
brother born, and the air in the house shifts
like a pedal drum. I touch his hair,
his skin, and remember your similar textures,
your softness. How your eyes, like his, looked to me
in adoration—looked to me and saw Mother.
First Love. Captain of this ship we’re sailing somewhere,
anywhere, across the sea. How things have changed
as you’ve grown; how these things will change
for him, too. In the dark, I hold you, sleeping and close,
and breathe you in. You are the glowing cotton
in the widest field. The seed and the earth. The rock,
the bed, the snow. Young and wild, you are the fire
whispering hot in the mangroves.