Today's poem is by Peter Cooley

Aubade
       

Sometimes, certain mornings, we are born again,
Our feet traveling the floor new feet, new floor,
Our windows watching as we cat-stretch, all new

To see our yard staring, blossoming
These flowers we newly planted yesterday
More wide-eyed than when we put them to bed.

We've never seen such hue regard the sky,
Every impatiens plant's uplifted head
Jubilant, defiant, red, on red, on red.

After such streaming light come to our hands
Like stigmata to the saints, we shower and wait,
The old terror, our familiar, on its way—

The shaving or the make-up mirror will hold
Our bones a death mask fits, then mirror back our yards—
Nothing the same color, nothing, sun's every glance.

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Copyright © 2024 Peter Cooley All rights reserved
from Accounting for the Dark
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission