Elegy for the End of Night by Clara Burghelea

When darkness descends, one part of us
will shine all night, its shadow moving
with the moon, counting breaths, aching
for warmth, flickering its tongue over
the tiny corners of the room, unknotting
slumber, and when the freshet of dawn
spills over our numb bodies, spidering
up the walls, this light will melt into the
unsung thoughts of the morning, on the
spilled coffee stains, the mirror, the tiny
snake plant, before it crawls back into
our sockets as we gaze into each other’s
sleepy faces. Bodies empty, fill like jars.
Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet with an MFA in Poetry from Adelphi University. Recipient of the Robert Muroff Poetry Award, her poems and translations appeared in Ambit, Waxwing, The Cortland Review and elsewhere. Her collection The Flavor of The Other was published in 2020 with Dos Madres Press.