Not yet midnight and an owl calls
from the woods. Night is a room
that grows larger every hour.
Windows become doors
and walls dissolve into dawn.
Somewhere along the way
every flower dies. Rain stops
and starts. I walk outside
and let my shoulders darken,
my hair fill up with mist.
Late October is late life,
just enough desire.
Pat Daneman’s work is widely published, notably in Mid-American Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, and Best of the Net. Her collection, After All, was finalist for the Thorpe-Menn and Kansas Book awards. She is author of two chapbooks, Find Me, forthcoming from Charlotte Lit press, and Where the World Begins. She serves on the board of the New Hampshire Poetry Society and as an assistant editor for their journal Touchstone. She lives in Exeter, NH. patdaneman.com