The Winter Days
Wake before dawn, steel moon in the window.
Window, attic, bedroom, milk. The lamp
wanders in the light. My house of clean mice--
wispy ribs in the ductwork, fur in the walls.
I found a lacy wing in the shed, a papery skull.
Something curled against the night, and oh the wind.
The child’s hand holds a broken shell, that robin’s egg,
that blue, that hand, “a little burdie.” So soon
this passes, lifts like breeze, and how I measure days
and years and never see the moon outright.
Under the skin of night, nocturnal creatures
nibble pumpkins left out on the stairs.
Window, attic, bedroom, milk. The lamp
wanders in the light. My house of clean mice--
wispy ribs in the ductwork, fur in the walls.
I found a lacy wing in the shed, a papery skull.
Something curled against the night, and oh the wind.
The child’s hand holds a broken shell, that robin’s egg,
that blue, that hand, “a little burdie.” So soon
this passes, lifts like breeze, and how I measure days
and years and never see the moon outright.
Under the skin of night, nocturnal creatures
nibble pumpkins left out on the stairs.
September 2024
Arlene Naganawa's chapbooks include Private Graveyard (Gribble Press), The Scarecrow Bride (Red Bird Chapbooks), The Ark and the Bear (Floating Bridge Press), and We Were Talking About When We Had Bodies (Ravenna Press). Her full-length collection, I Weave a Nest of Foil, was published in April of this year by Kelson Books.
Art: Kelly Cressio-Moeller, Childhood Faultlines. Mixed media: acrylic, ink, paper, mica flakes on basswood panel, 2023.