Night Shirt

Two crickets call
nearly in unison.
Fireflies rise blinking
from the grass.
It’s the new moon
& the summer solstice:
a dark night, but short.
Heat lightning
on the horizon.
The humid air like silk,
like an unwound cocoon:
will we be cool enough
to sleep? Already
I hear the beginning
of a low growl.

5 Replies to “Night Shirt”

  1. Oh, this was the most wonderful reading experience!

    I thought it was Luisa, clear through to the end, and the sudden change of speaker, in my mind, did wonderful things to an already wonderful poem.

  2. I saw, rather than read, this as an unspooling scroll. Fireflies, then the o’s in “moon” as lights, and ampersand as connect-a-dot flights. The vertical stack of “night”/”lightning”/”horizon” charts dark’s boundary.

    I also loved the scroll lesson, implied q and a. The silk (from where) cocoon, unwound (like sleeping bag): can we sleep? “Unwound” is red with contained hurt. Is a short night more safe? Cue growl.

    1. I *love* this comment. It’s a poem in itself. And this, especially, seems like a (first) line of a poem: “The vertical stack of “night”/”lightning”/”horizon” charts dark’s boundary.”

  3. Thanks, guys. I wasn’t too crazy about this when I posted it — and felt that Luisa’s poem blew it out of the water — but since you like it, I’ll have to re-think my opinion.

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