The space diminishing. The hours narrowing. The clock winding down To slowness, ready to stop Before we are prepared to stop tracking The time. I open the blinds just before dusk To find the sun is dying, Fallen from her perch above it all And bleeding in the street An orange-yellow blood That is in flames pooling along the gutters. You are all stuck in your homes Watching as the sun blinks out Just as I am. The blood of the sun irradiating us, Making the minutes into seconds, the days into hours. Might as well sit down and wait. I move to the cool easy darkness of my bedroom, Shut the door, turn on the overhead fan. I hunker down with my poetry books And the memories of when the sun was in the sky In the day, the moon there at night And you beside me, above me, beneath me In the brief times between All of the sadness. The space diminishing. The walls becoming tighter, the ceiling lowering. The sun is dead, the streets in flames of blood. It’s nice and dark in here, though. I feel the glow coming from the windows. I think about other things, getting into bed, Waiting. The hours so narrow It is day and also night, The moon melting upon The corpse of the still hot sun As I lie here waiting. Just waiting The way I have always Waited.
John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
