Late Afternoon by Michelle Bitting

Late Afternoon

Beyond the limits
of longing
a patchwork
of shadows and light
because winter
and a window
and the other side
of the pane
a frozen sun
its trembling, dappled display
where leaves are dropping
what you have been
you have
the potential to become
again, I said
I want to travel the world
he said
imagining the country
a French chateau
a girl in a room
lifting her chapeau
thick with books
thick as a forest
lullaby
and thought
an alchemy
warming his cheeks
to Rosicrucian
where I have seen fire
inside the walls
and a message
burning
it says— thou art God

*

Michelle Bitting is the author of six poetry collections, including Nightmares & Miracles (Two Sylvias Press, 2022), winner of the Wilder Prize and named one of Kirkus Reviews 2022 Best of Indie. Her chapbook Dummy Ventriloquist was published in July 2024 by C & R Press. Recent poetry appears on The Slowdown, Thrush, Cleaver, The Poetry Society of New York’s Milk Press, Catamaran, SWWIM, and is featured as Poem of the Week in The Missouri Review. Bitting is writing a novel that centers around Los Angeles and her great grandmother, stage and screen actor Beryl Mercer, and is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature at Loyola Marymount University.