As I lie in bed the wind warps a hole through me large enough to admit a scorch of moonlight. You’re so restless you roll over and over, flattening landscapes already discolored by memory. Pumps rasp in the basement where ground water plots to reclaim us. The year is ending as usual. The dark becomes too personal, the severance of self from other becomes contractual, and days before a clutter of birthdays— Richard Nixon, Joan Baez, myself— the year folds its campsite and sighs. After a slow week of thaw the snow has scheduled itself to return and smooth away the rough spots. Although it can’t enter the house, the wind has its way with me. Late yesterday afternoon you insisted that I sample expensive bourbon someone evil gave a friend who drinks with undergraduate fervor inappropriate in middle age. Now I can’t sleep, the moon sinister but meaningless, its stony façade masking an historic lack of intention. The hole the wind has worked in me doesn’t hurt, but the moonlight reveals an unfamiliar texture— something like prehistoric stonework evolution forgot it commissioned, buried in ordinary rubble.
About the Poet:
William Doreski‘s work has appeared in various e and print journals and in several collections, most recently Train to Providence, a collaboration with photographer Rodger Kingston.
Ephemeral Elegies 
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