by SUZI MEZEI
We marvel at the vast expanse of the black hours
which begin around nine when the hilltop stretches
tenebrous all the way to the ocean where a moon
lights only the water, where the surface tonight is
cleared of vessels and fins, though something
underneath makes ripples. Cold pushes against the
door of the cottage, slithers like sheets of blank
paper in the gaps between frames and sills
we lie somewhere in the non-sensical moments
just before sleep the tentacles of our city-lives
slowly releasing their grip, I imagine the shape,
skin, feathers, bones or gills of whatever moves out
there, heard or unheard, concealed in the cricket-thick
dark, the ones that await the safety of our somnolence,
the REM and deep sleep minutes when we cannot
observe, do not disturb them or interact; those
born of this place whose predecessors were ingested
over centuries by the locale, the whole place
now heavy with nocturns and assorted cottage
tenants, who’ll stay for just a little while.