Self-Portrait in a Patio Door, 2017

Lamplight from the family room makes mirrors

of the patio door and kitchen window. I’m ghosted there—

a man-shaped penumbra on a field of November darkness.

In my face, a smudge of yellow where the horizon meets

the city—silhouette of branches in my chest and beard

up through the top of my head. A mild man, untested, soft,

treed in a borderland where forces meet, as on a Mekong

Delta or a Mason-Dixon Line. Because I know it’s there,

I can see the shape of a table with chairs, where people

might sit, share a meal. Beyond, it is dark upon dark—

all possibility with its hope and dread—Thanksgiving

with its toast and argument, winter its rest and slaughter.

Soon, it’ll be spring with its human sacrifice. What’s left?

What’s left when I reach in and turn off the light?

Published in I-70 Review, Summer/Fall 2018