J. Allyn Rosser: "Then Too There Is This"

                               joy in the day's being done, however   

                               clumsily, and in the ticked-off lists,   

                               the packages nestling together,   

                               no one home waiting for dinner, for   

                               you, no one impatient for your touch   

                               or kind words to salve what nightly   

                               rises like heartburn, the ghost-lump feeling   

                               that one is really as alone as one had feared.   

                               One isn't, not really. Not really. Joy   

                               to see over the strip mall darkening   

                               right on schedule a neon-proof pink   

                               sunset flaring like the roof of a cat's mouth,   

                               cleanly ribbed, the clouds laddering up   

                               and lit as if by a match struck somewhere   

                               in the throat much deeper down.

"Then Too There Is This" by J. Allyn Rosser, from Poetry (March, 2004).

Photography credit: "Once Upon a Time," by Heidi Fry, © Heidi Fry/Spring Burst Photography (originally color).