Today's poem is by Valentina Gnup

The Animal Dark
       

A sparrow mistakes my window for sky, shattering glass,
feathers, and blood—death builds its house wherever it wants.

Mystics believe sorrow takes seven years to reach the soul,
our histories enter us while we crack an egg into a skillet

or stand on our porch watching leaves disappear inside
the rusty bed of a truck. Our work is to record the flawed world

—I wanted to save this night, our mouths moving
like moth wings, dusting one another's shoulders, bellies,

and thighs, but daylight stole the foreign and familiar lines
we mapped on each other's skin late in the animal dark.

Tweet

Copyright © 2024 Valentina Gnup All rights reserved
from Ruined Music
Grayson Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission