Peter Blair: Between Me and the Light

Through the transverse slats of a blind,
a window screen’s fine-woven steel net
is lit by a star, no, only a tiny hole
in the mesh against the pale rose of dawn.
Moth’s eggs splay like a comet tail,
across the cross-hatched wires.
A gnat crawls on the glass
plastered to the sunrise like my eyes
over the panes. Two cardinals do it
on a gable peak. Wings fluttering
humming-bird-quick, he hovers
behind her still pose,
once, twice. He’s flying in place;
he’s flying.

A locust tree’s bare branches
shake in winter breezes.
Fast-moving clouds beyond
the dark limbs drift and disintegrate
and behind them the sky turns
blue, bluer, blurred,
blest by the sun’s tangerine hands.
My eyes turn to see the clock,
red numbers: 7:05.

The cat gently claws my thigh
for its breakfast, purring,
as I sit, legs crossed on the bed.
The brittle green wire
of a dead choker vine arcs
above the forsythia. It had nowhere
to go but down into itself.
Between me and the light is the ache
in my ankles, the pain in my knees,
the pen and notebook
resting on my calf.

—

Copyright 2015 by Peter Blair

Published with permission of the author