Emily Light
Crowded
Best that midnight has a nearsighted squint
so I don’t get lost in wonder.
Best that rows of trees don’t crowd my window
like a new box of pencils.
Lichened roofs don’t seduce
the way a veil of cherry blossoms would
pull me from responsibility’s cacophony.
Neuroses crowd my brain the way the galaxy
once bullied all quiet from the night sky.
How loud it must have been!
All that twinkling & breadth—
I’d have wanted to swim
in the messy gaps between logic.
From this window I see the sump pump eject
a new stream on the driveway every four minutes.
The mailman climbs the neighbor’s stoop
& envelopes flutter like dry leaves.
Sometimes the clouds & I pretend
we’re mountains
waiting like a deep breath
for release.
Emily Light
Emily Light’s poetry can be found in such journals as Inch, Lake Effect, Cherry Tree, Cumberland River Review, and RHINO, among others. She teaches English and lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.