Excerpt III (Partial Constellations)

Christopher Raley
Poets Unlimited
Published in
1 min readJan 21, 2017

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I was just thinking this can’t go on
when I realized: I can’t find my phone.
She said, Can you put in The Duchess?
I complied, then, under flickering blue light,

I shoved tired feet into slippers.
Outside midnight air clouded breath as I
shuffled to the phone’s last known location.
Key fob and car lights, phone inside, I stopped.

I looked up and night was a gentle sigh.
Low clouds in break glowed white
to frame pin pricked cloth of deepest black
as if sulfur urban could grace lightless rural.

What a guard, that our relentless neon
in this rare moment should step aside and
let those long lost souls whisper their stories.

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