Night
You’ve begun to shut down.
Spend more time alone.
Converse with your cat for relief,
When the mere sight of a human,
Makes you retreat a few steps,
Then beat it back home.
And it’s not just due to the boy.
You were well on your way,
Long before he gave you the boot,
Sending you into a tailspin,
Grasping for the only straw,
Left in an empty box.
But, I’m afraid, that’s how
It often is with history—
The retelling of a tale—
Over and over and over again,
Until you’re condemned to relive it—
Or forget it entirely,
Sheltering in the one place
No soul could ever locate you.
And tomorrow’s your birthday,
Cake-filled hours of silence,
Where you’ll light a candle
In darkness so bright,
You needn’t bother to call it night.
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Ren Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Ren Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Ren Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Ren Hen Press), Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press), and This Body Is Never at Rest: New and Selected Poems 1993 – 2023 (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.
