Clifford Brooks

The Sky Is a Nightgown

Bring the sky down
in a nightgown.
Foggy ripples
of fall’s first cold
choke off the harbor.
Shafts of evergreens
are still life
still wet.

The cold is a gauzy cloth
that rubs green out of everything.
An old summer,
its virginity lost,
those hours
are seeded cloths,
crinkled
underfoot:
The frozen night.

…

The dark is forceful.
It fits
around mountains,
into small towns.
Wolves and wind
push through pine needles.
Warmth is an ongoing
struggle.

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Clifford Brooks (www.cliffbrooks.com) is a poet and founder of the Southern Collective Experience LLC (www.southerncollectiveexperience.com). He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his girlfriend, Carolyn.