It’s the Middle of the Night

Photo: © Stephane Cocke. All rights reserved.

The dog knows better
which way in the darkness to go
& pulls your sleepless son toward the edges
where the soft ivy grows.

Meanwhile your mother’s wandering
just a few miles away, looking for her purse,
her coat, her most comfortable shoes.

The need to leave affects you all.

You ask yourself, if I let go, what then?

Your son is missing, and
your mother’s already gone. 

In the still-dark hours
the great horned owl probes.
The cotton sheet’s too chilly, the coverlet’s
too warm. You lie awake with one leg out,
alert to the shifting, how it records itself
by light. You keep

your eyelids closed. Though still you see
the cedar tree’s shadow, the dog
at the foot of your bed curled tight.

Christine Jones is a poet from Cape Cod, MA. She is founder/editor-in-chief of Poems2go and an associate editor of Lily Poetry Review. Her poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals She is the author of the full-length poetry book, Girl Without a Shirt (Finishing Line Press, 2020) and co editor of the recently released anthology, Voices Amidst the Virus: Poets Respond to the Pandemic (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2020).

Appears In

Issue 12

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