Night Job

As we walk to the car,
the charcoal sky
reaches down
and swallows streetlamps –
air, plush with water,
paints windshields silver –

here and there
birds make dawn
in the dark.

(Previously published in Island Writer magazine, Volume 8, Issue 2, Winter 2010)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moss

In the green summer you were brown
and bristly as a boar,
clinging to the dry stone
with brittle roots.

Now leaves are brown
and grass is pale, bloated with rain
but you light up
green as a Christmas tree
soft as skin
tracing the creases
in the rock
with such tenderness.

(Previously published in Island Writer magazine, Volume 9, Issue 1, Spring 2011)