✨ Report

blue lake of longing...

Report [an excerpt]

In rest—like the space
between stars or heartbeats—

uncertainty hinges. There,
Coyote waves his feather wand.

Venus rises at 6 a.m. Petals
open. The moon,
a raucous blare, moves west.

Blue salt, blue dusk, blue lake
of longing.

Temperatures over the region drop
to 30 degrees in the dawn low.

Venus, her crevices
effaced by distance,
closes her lamp against the wind,

though she does not waver
through the long day.

A thin confetti of petals
below the apple tree.

—Elizabeth C. Herron

“Report” excerpt is taken from In the Cities of Sleep. Copyright © 2023 by Elizabeth C. Herron. Used by permission of Fernwood Press. All rights reserved. www.fernwoodpress.com. Photo by Magnus Östberg, via Unsplash.