My evening peters out by nine, then wakes
to prowl where the darkness meets the dawn, that
part of night most don’t know about, fail to
understand, cannot appreciate for
rolling over, pulling covers tighter
for that short time the sun is furthest off
on the other half of the world, making
this side temporarily colder. Here,
there, everywhere in between, we walk through
our journeys in various states of wake
or sleep, just one eye open. I am trying
to remember someone’s bad hair cut from
a yearbook thirty years ago, a thought
I never could have imagined, nor how
my fingers now yearn to touch that face, say
I understand. Tomorrow I will climb
into my car and drive. Today, unwashed
dishes from the night before are stacked, a
photograph from a yearbook I never
bought bobbing and circling about my head
as if I have a vortex in my crown,
the light coming on, the birds committed,
fog alive and lifting, ready to rise.
Sandra Kolankiewicz’s is published in One, Otis Nebulae, Trampset, Concho River Review, London Magazine, New World Writing and Appalachian Heritage. Turning Inside Out was published by Black Lawrence. Finishing Line has released The Way You Will Go and Lost in Transition.
Sandra–Thank you for a poem whose imagery sometimes suddenly surprises–that’s the nature of a dream state or night itself. “A Contemporary Translation” is also a powerful meditation that unspools with affecting similes and metaphors and stimulating ideas. Brava!