Night of the Full Moon

 

I have nothing to write

except the rattle

against the window,
the sound of encroaching

winter. The gray woolens

of the clouds part,

and the silver disc
rises in the sky. The leaves

speak again of the dying

flowers, the comforts.
The road is quiet,
and it does not know your name.

 

 

As Soon as I Step Away

 

As soon as I step away,
the bottles fly. As soon
as I step away, everything

repeats. The night’s crimson

shadows percolate persimmons,

the dawn’s slippers casual

like spilled words, syllables,

the detritus of delight. As soon

as I step away, the day breaks

into its usual panoply of color,

its tidbits of song. L’Allegro

sauntering upon the avenue,

flaneur of the everyday.
 

These the images of myself,
the fantasias of a shift
at the desk, of six hours
in front of a class. No escape,

no return. This is not so much

a song of regret as a key-legend

to the pathways, a telex

explaining the default wave.
 
The turntable moves less
the closer to the center you are.

At the center, the axis is perfect-

ly still, like the eye of the day
as the dawn breaks over the rim

of what we call the world.

 

 

 

 


 

Jorge Sánchez received his MFA from the University of Michigan and currently teaches at the Chicago Academy for the Arts and Wilbur Wright College. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Iowa Review, Indiana Review, Crab Orchard Review, Nimrod, and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son.

 

Photo credit: Jim Larrison (https://www.flickr.com/photos/larrison)