Night Work
In the lucid hours of insomnia
I build and multiply images—
a whole wall of unsleeping,
feel the stillness
of my husband’s body
against my unspooling.
I lift the necklace of marigolds,
a gift in Rishikesh, almost inhale
the-more-dirt-than-flower scent.
Now I’m on our road at dusk
in that echo of one gunshot.
It’s hunting season, everyone
wearing red or orange.
Where did that bullet land,
did it sink in living skin?
I am on a mission
to dig and dig
until the clink of bone,
and I find the rhyme
in love and blood.
*
Sarah Dickenson Snyder has written poetry since she knew there was a form with conscious line breaks. She has three poetry collections, The Human Contract (2017), Notes from a Nomad (nominated for the Massachusetts Book Awards 2018), and With a Polaroid Camera (2019). Recently, poems appeared in Rattle, The Sewanee Review, and RHINO. She has been a 30/30 poet for Tupelo Press, nominated for Best of Net, the Poetry Prize Winner of Art on the Trails 2020, and a Finalist for Iron Horse National Poetry Month Award. She lives in the hills of Vermont. sarahdickensonsnyder.com
