Against Darkness

by Nicholas Yingling

 

Here the crows are old snow 
with black feet. The Americans watch
from their cottage

as the beaks puzzle
out a calf. The moon, she says, 
is much older than we think. Here the trees 

die soft. He pulls a switch and it gives
without a sound. She counts the tallymarks
on a thrush’s breast. 

This will be the last time. They each take a half 

of her body and tie it to the bed.
Her mother told her love makes a stone
out of lightning and birds. She shows him 

the palm that held the riverrock
that held the sandpiper
as proof. She begins to sweat,

her blood full
of his. In their restraints her arms brace.
They curl out like a candelabrum, 

each needlehole black as a wick
burnt down. Softly he blows into them:
small prayers against darkness.

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NICHOLAS YINGLING’s work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Colorado Review, Spillway, Notre Dame Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Palette Poetry, and others. He splits his time up and down the Pacific Coast.