Before & after the night

 after Antonella Anedda

I

At last, what must be done falls away

undone          Darkness grows like headaches grow

from a hard seed & gathers as pain gathers

                                           the body in, the last note

of sunset paled behind the hill's shoulder

           Night muffles the windows of the house

& the fleet-beacons of cars blare in the dark

           then a quiet that had spread as shadows

from the trees' roots becomes whole

with the lights unfastening                        

                                               Sleep, eyes - let the heart speak -

& a cold air cracks & the bare, brown earth

listens, remembering ice

           The truce of an owl sounds in the wet-winged oak

II

Time stretches, filling the unburied dawn

with windows & cars & leaves - relinquishing

the silence, as songs do

                        when they sing the unsolvable pain

We have slept, contagiously, then rouse

to the road's slick roar, to clocks shaking out

          their numbers like an arcane dew

                                             What no longer mattered -

which was the night's comfort - picks up again

its substance like a ghost

& cleans its aching teeth

                      We enter our empty clothes: here

           comes a hand through a sleeve

like a worm        out of earth        into the blackbird's beak

—Jemma Borg