by Daniel Blackston

 All night a tide without water, midnight blossoms dotted with gnats, waiting for dew. Cats toeing careful as surgeons through hedges, through honeysuckle, a plate-shaped moon vocalizing silver over crazed crickets, every sun-lover spilled down dream-tunnels to waterless deeps. We feel the gothic breeze of leaving the body, thrilled like seeing a napkin tossed on a burning rose, each sleeper climbing hills of dreams, stumbling alone to our empty temples.
 
Mine smells of candles warm as mothers, tear-lights blazed in front of painted glass that plays a cartoon crucifixion, dream rain whizzing, tapping the arch windows like thousands of souls never born. Then I wake in my same skin form, drive my tollway past black sand at the pit of the harbor that teems with lost coins, anchors, and keys.

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Daniel Blackston is a professional writer whose work has appeared in dozens of journals and anthologies. His poetry has appeared or will appear in: California Quarterly, The Cape Rock, The Santa Clara Review, Kelp Journal, and Plainsongs. His most recent non-fiction books: The Ariel Method, and William Shakespeare and the Divine Mind, will be published in 2022. Daniel spotlights poems, features poets, and talks about poetry at his Stone Secrets blog at danielblackston.com.