Light and How It Falls Through Windows by Allison Thorpe

Every night a circus outside my window:

Strobe like a shameless barker
            spiels its blinding babble
                        across the murky sky

Summer fireworks
            rainbow confetti
                        over the distant field

Street signals
            Juggle a constant
                        red   yellow   green

Fire trucks
            whirl and spin
                        their bright acrobatics

Dazzle the blue
            flickered magic
                        of ambulances

Neon-crusted buildings
            hook the eye
                        with gaudy lures

But I come from a dark country
            of hoot owl lullaby
                        and coyote dream

Where night
            spends a single silver coin
                        for entry

This new city thrums
            and lusters
                        such a rich showy life

How dull of me
            to pine that past, that plain
                        and stilling moon



Allison Thorpe's most recent chapbook is Dorothy's Glasses (Finishing Line Press, 2015). New work appears or is forthcoming in Appalachian Heritage, Pleiades, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and Stonecoast Review. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky. 


return to poetry                 home