by Kathryn Weld

Eve is the small hours – as if hours have sizes –
large for embraces of a grandchild, the shocks
of grudge and grief; small with hushed movements –
a sigh, the stirring of a mouse beneath
the oak; it is owl-light, a turning from night
towards day, the half-light, hunting time;
is vespers – and prayer – is the start of crepuscule,
of dimday – pine boughs whisper, the pond lours
with backlit cloud. Street lamps turn on in a flash,
blind us to the peripheral. It is the point in time
at onset: cusp, threshold, edge. Someone
already inside the garden – (was there an outside
of the garden yet?) someone selling truth dangles
from the shrubbery and Eve opens the gate.

Kathryn Weld is the author of Afterimage (Pine Row Press 2023) and a chapbook, Waking Light (Kattywompus Press 2019). Her poetry and prose appear in journals such as The American Book Review, The Cortland Review, Gyroscope Review, The Southeast Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Wild Roof Journal, and elsewhere. A mathematician as well as a poet, she is Professor Emeritus at Manhattan University. Find her on Instagram @kathrynweld.