This poem was published in Fairfield Scribes Issue 9.
An Hour at Night
When I’m not an exhausted housekeeper
Not an acquiescent wife. Not a meticulous mother.
Not a steadfast sister. Sixty minutes all of my own.
My son’s 2B pencil in my hand. A worn, bookmarked
Mary Oliver collection in my lap. Steam rising from a cup
of tea on a cork-coaster. A pair of sherpa-slippers warming
my gelid feet. No little hands grabbing my gown. No stubble
grazing my skin. No dish to be rinsed. No fish to be batter-fried.
An hour quiet as dawn, I’m a fawn, sheltering under word shrubs.
