Nightsong

These small attentions, little nightsongs
that come so easily to us in the dark.
These words half-breathed before morning
is upon us, its consuming brightness a hollow mouth,
empty and loud with the day.
We leave the covers, the accidental entwinements
we find ourselves in as the night hums forward.
We lose again the blissful isolation
of waking at four a.m. to the other's blinking eyes,
how they catch the moon's light whispering
through the window, flickering
like a candle the sun will blot out.

Poems by Lisa Sitkin: