Of Cold & a March Night
by Ralph Monday


The stars are spiraling borders retina-locked
like van Gogh’s kaleidoscope, maddening
swirls lording over dark cypresses

             sprouted

from a cold that envelopes me hauling
firewood fueled by a star & overhead
in the ancient vacuum the

                           cold

filters down like the arctic in a London
tale. Even the calling owls know this
totem, the news that they etch into
each branch with primal claws,

                                       those

glowing spheres caught by a hunter’s
pupils, the long nights they have known,
vast abyss above & below, no true
shelter but what the mind rationalizes.

I would say
                        come in and warm

                                       your wings by the fire.

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Ralph Monday is Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN.  He is widely published in journals. His latest book is Bergman’s Island & Other Poems (Terror House Press, 2021). You can follow him on Twitter @RalphMonday.