Call

I work the blankets, push my head into the pillow,
the down settles me. I sleep. I wake. I raise the shades.

The reality of cold air enters through the inch or two
of open window. The sun is still below the tree tops.

Below me, around the culvert, deer nose the grass
wet from last night’s storm. I remember the lightning.

The room lightening. The slow roll of distant thunder.
Below the tree tops only shadow. The sun is still.

A deer’s nose quivers. In the late afternoon,
the long grass will look like fallen arrows.

I want breakfast, want to eat a warm roll, slowly.
The road could be a problem, wet from last night’s rain,

but I’ll walk today. I check the weather. No storms
predicted. A robin alights, patrols the culvert.

Where I sleep the windows won’t open more than an inch
or two. There is no moon. No storm. No clouds.

Thunder is blood pulsing in my ears squashed into
the down pillow. Through the inch or two of open window,

the cold air of reality arrives. It’s unsettling. There,
below the tree tops, the sun is still.

---

Jay Brecker’s poetry has appeared in RHINOpoetry, OVS Magazine, Bird’s Thumb, The
Squaw Valley Review; [dialog box] a chapbook from Thistle and Weed Press; on the
website www.onehundredwalkers.com. A full-length manuscript, A Case of Mad Love,
was a semi-finalist in the Trio House Press open reading, 2015. He lives and works in
southern California.