Dreamless Your face in that hour between two nighttime hours is the place your breaths occur without you. An unlatched gate opened by the wind settles back to rest on its hinges. Leaves on the branches, leaves on the ground are red, gold despite the bleaching of night -- its palette of yes and no. I can't get back to sleep. There is a murmur of music from outside -- a neighbor parked but hasn't gone in -- a deep sound with indiscernible lyrics. I watch you for you while your face is here in our midst.
Our Worry Nested on the Couch When we opened to blow the steam from our mug worry, too, raised its digits as if to cradle, leaned forward to position its fleshless skull near ours. Worry’s jaw lowered releasing only starlight. Still worry did polish the upholstery with the duration of its own robed worry. Worry would shift to mimic our shifting, would rise when we rose to fall later back into our locations to be held as we were held -- yieldingly but firmly enough that some hint of our curvature will survive us when we leave our furniture behind.
Marc Rahe is the author of The Smaller Half (Rescue Press, 2010), On Hours (Rescue Press, 2015), and Gravity Well (Rescue Press, 2020). His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, jubilat, MAKE Literary Magazine, Pangyrus, PEN Poetry Series, Sixth Finch, and other literary journals. He lives in Iowa City.
