Tonight

John Brantingham

__________

It’s 2am
before I notice
the snow in the streetlight

coming down
in fat wet flakes.
It’s an inch thick

on the road, and no one’s
driven this way yet.
Sirens are whining

and so far from me
that they’re soft as birdsong.
The blue light

of my neighbor’s television
is playing
off his curtains.

I imagine him
finally able to sleep
because the sound of a sitcom

reminds his resting mind
that everything
is all right.

I don’t think
I’ll be able to sleep
as well as he is tonight.

__________

John Brantingham was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been featured in hundreds of magazines, Writers Almanac and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has nineteen books of poetry, nonfiction and fiction including Life: Orange to Pear, Kitkitdizzi and Days of Recent Divorce. He is the founder and general editor of The Journal of Radical Wonder. He lives in Jamestown, New York.