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.

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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.