a night walk in new snow

on some nights, like this one –
out in the snow near to midnight –
the size of living can be altered

for a short time, I can be small –
a warm-furred mouse trailing punctuation
across the unmarked drifts

© Sarah Whiteley

I took the most enchanting walk through the falling snow late last night. The streets were quiet and not a car moving in sight. Every tree was wrapped in white, and the night felt huge and soft. Sometimes it’s nice to find these reminders that I don’t need to leave the confines of the city to find peace and contentment in nature.

My newest chapbook Wandering Wonderful is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press.

boating at night

the boat of course is metaphor
though it is, undeniably, night

and fingers do trail over the side,
but also over stern and bow

it is also true that we do move as water –
that hair cascades and skin ripples

but that again is metaphor,
for which I am unapologetic

and I cannot be at all contrite
for not minding stirring up depths

or were we to drown together
beneath the moon’s regard

in fact, my heart, that may be all
that is certain and indisputable

© Sarah Whiteley

pearl from shadow

there is no finer promise
than the uncertain light
which finds you
from between the blinds
and casts you
in bewitching blue –

a hue into which my hands
are driven to dive –
pulling the pearl
from the shadow

© Sarah Whiteley

for Shi Shi

out here the rain and your book
are my only companions,

and the only thing that matters
is the campfire

and keeping the sparks (bright,
living) from too-close legs

where fabricated light cannot reach
solitude is no longer secondary,

but breathes with my breath,
and pauses in the dark –

intending everything,
but only later
— much later

© Sarah Whiteley

morning reluctance

almost like night,
eyes closed,

outside,
crusted snow
protests beneath
some dog’s feet

I admit it’s possible
the sun hasn’t
reached me yet

© Sarah Whiteley

the departed

your departure has the weight of ash

no longer carrying your fate,
I return to my old shape

days hold their same complexities
but night has become startlingly simple –

rucked sheets, wooden bed-frame –
there’s no need to believe in anything else

how is it that you ever fit
inside these walls? inside this time?

I was never a promise –
my hands, my breasts, my breathing –

are sovereign and whole

© Sarah Whiteley

insomnia

craving stars, I crept
down the crouching hallway,
disturbing only moths
seeking their own small
allowance of light

trees sleep, lowering
their limbs by fractions
as the day subsides,
leaving only the incremental
gestures of slumber

I have had to explain often
the peculiar edicts of insomnia,
and how it does no good
to seek why in the high
corners of the night

how it is better then
to slip into ready shoes,
and out into the expectant dark
where pivot the city’s
token of stars

© Sarah Whiteley

the hours of you that remain

we say goodnight,
then goodnight,
and once more a goodnight
of softening kisses –
just as the dawn
cracks the night

I count the hours of you
that remain to me,
and tuck them about us –
thin comfort against
the coming light

© Sarah Whiteley

what matter what light

what is there left to make
of this diminished light?

is this benediction? or a requiem
rung from empty throats?

what use in evading
the day’s extinction?

it is vespers, and the cantor
marks an inescapable terminus

what matter what light
is left to us?

for while there is any light at all,
benedicimus! benedicimus te! –

how wondrous the consummation,
how beautiful the end!

© Sarah Whiteley

cigarette before dawn

before dawn, I curl myself
into a single cigarette
and forget for a moment
that I am anything other than
lips, than smoke, than
the act of exhaling

when I write such things,
I am shifting the silences
into a semblance of meaning,
wrapping words around the hours
too late to be called night,
too early yet to be morning

and I am grateful for
the hard end of the bench
I press my back against
while I wait for something –
anything – to progress
beyond the gray plumes
that loop the air before me

© Sarah Whiteley