Alphabetics of the Comforters
by Jayne Marek
Folded, bedclothes rise in crests toward the storms.
One side of night pressed down, invisible, the other
Inescapable, a cradle of waiting.
Hours of minuscule cat footsteps cross the floor
To listen at black walls.
Hard to believe anyone might have hidden
Something precious under the pillow
Where it could easily wrap the mind’s eye
In scarves that never rest, that
Unfold their hunger,
Pointing toward the wind’s escape,
Shaping the hieroglyphic
Of a name in a forgotten alphabet
One is required to know.
Cold Promise
by Jayne Marek
So rare to have the windows open in autumn
On a day when the dry leaves click together
Stirred by a robin’s foot. Still here, bird?
You’ll be sorry if you linger too long
Among patches of thinning grass.
Beetle buzz, bark scents waft in,
On damp weedy air. It’s morning,
Time for the lawn to decide: rot or parch?
Irregular patches of light fall
Timidly from the east, disbelieving
And with good reason. By nightfall, wind
Will steady its stream across these surfaces,
The scoured house walls, the shivering glass,
Whistling shingles, all the early promise
Shoved away by stiff arms.
by Jayne Marek
Folded, bedclothes rise in crests toward the storms.
One side of night pressed down, invisible, the other
Inescapable, a cradle of waiting.
Hours of minuscule cat footsteps cross the floor
To listen at black walls.
Hard to believe anyone might have hidden
Something precious under the pillow
Where it could easily wrap the mind’s eye
In scarves that never rest, that
Unfold their hunger,
Pointing toward the wind’s escape,
Shaping the hieroglyphic
Of a name in a forgotten alphabet
One is required to know.
Cold Promise
by Jayne Marek
So rare to have the windows open in autumn
On a day when the dry leaves click together
Stirred by a robin’s foot. Still here, bird?
You’ll be sorry if you linger too long
Among patches of thinning grass.
Beetle buzz, bark scents waft in,
On damp weedy air. It’s morning,
Time for the lawn to decide: rot or parch?
Irregular patches of light fall
Timidly from the east, disbelieving
And with good reason. By nightfall, wind
Will steady its stream across these surfaces,
The scoured house walls, the shivering glass,
Whistling shingles, all the early promise
Shoved away by stiff arms.
Bio: Jayne Marek’s poetry has appeared in publications such as
Lantern Journal, Siren, Spillway, Driftwood Bay, Tipton Poetry Journal,
Isthmus, The Occasional Reader, Wisconsin Academy Review, and Windless Orchard
and in several anthologies. In 2013, Finishing Line Press published her first
chapbook and Chatter House Press brought out a book of poems she co-authored
with Lylanne Musselman and Mary Sexson.