Caleb has had the great good sense to introduce our own Alicia to "Mastery." See poems from contemporary masters??? Next week Alicia will take up the Lariatship for two weeks in my absence, and for you benighted souls who haven't read Archaic Smile, here's another of her sonnets, the final poem in this stunning first collection.
Night Shift
Two a.m. The freight train files its grievance
Into the tall cabinet of the night.
Beyond the street lamps, stars grow recondite.
The insomniac is listening to distance
Shifting register, a kind of sorrow.
The train is keening in concatenations,
"It is too late. It's already tomorrow--
Even when nothing happens, time is ever
Ticking down the track between two stations."
The hours are numbered, and then they elide.
The sick child is tossing in her fever,
The bridegroom turns him from the bride.
The insomniac turns the cool, white page. The lover
Turns the pillow to the cooler side.
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