The Shortest Night

I went into the forest searching

for fire inside pleading wood,

but I can’t say for how long

I was moored between worlds.

I heard a magpie’s rumination,

but I don’t know if its wings

lifted the moon or let it drift

slow as a little straw boat

set ablaze on a winding river.

I learned the yellow-eyed wolf

is a dog & a man. A small boy

with a star pinned to his sleeve

was hiding among thorn bushes,

or it was how the restless dark

wounded the pale linden tree

outside a Warsaw apartment.

Night crawls under each stone

quick as a cry held in the throat.

All I remember is my left hand

was holding your right breast

when I forced my eyes shut.

Then I could hear something

in the room, magnanimous

but small, half outside & half

inside, no more than a song—

an insomniac’s one prophecy

pressed against the curtains,

forcing the ferns to bloom.