Long Night

James Owens

 

You twist, body’s heat

pursuing, captive wolf

turning to flee

the cage, and turning again.

 

It is only flu, this heat,

not deadly. Still, you dream,

your face is fever-wet.

No last-ditch flight

to sticky sleep

will cool this burning.

 

But the fever keeps us sane,

reins close our love

for the body, brings the taste

of self back to the mouth.

 

Watching beside you,

I tell myself the morning

will break more brightly for this.

 

But that is philosophy.

It bears no pain or illness.

   

    

James Owens is author of An Hour is the Doorway (Black Lawrence Press, 2007) and Frost Lights a Thin Flame (Mayapple Press, 2007). Recent work has appeared in Birmingham Poetry Review, Chantarelle's Notebook, Boxcar Poetry Review, Blue Fifth Review, and Galatea Resurrects. He teaches at Valparaiso University and lives with his wife and children in La Porte, Indiana.

  

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