Never Night

​​               

               —for Christopher

 

Subzero out, yet here in his room

it’s blizzarding sun—through windows, 

a whiteout of light buries the bed, 

 

the nightstand where a harmonica rests 

its taut grin of dust. Here, among the curling 

corners of tacked-up rock posters,

 

one picture he framed with care,

the snowy owl from National Geographic.

Bones hollow for channeling wind 

 

in silent flight. Feathered gargoyle, 

fat talons gripping a branch.

 

The shock of that white, tight-pinched face,

face of a clock smashed in. Listen:

 

fir trees bristle in a serrated breeze,

great spindles of exposed nerves. 

 

Afternoon accumulates. The owl 

could spend a life of frantic wings

in the spectral sunlight here.

 

 

​

Artifact: The police photo

​

You are laid out

in my palm. Your blood 

a red fact spreading 

on the tar porch floor. 

For the last time 

your body sunlit—

the sun so bright, 

as if the light 

had knocked you down.

The brown of your eyes

buried in light, 

nearly gone.

It is difficult to tell

where you end 

and the light begins.

 

 

Julie A. Cox received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota, where she received the Edelstein-Keller poetry fellowship. A finalist for the Loft Mentorship Series and Writers@Work, her poetry appears in  Cream City Review, Failbetter, Grist, Salamander, and elsewhere.