Omens of the Calid Hour

By Tina Durham

 When the owl soars in the shadows of night

 and black centipedes fall from the sky;

 when the grey-footed stallion shines white

 in the glow of Coyote’s fey cry;

 when the crickets scrape brown songs of love

 to the tune of a wild, vanished sea;

 when your still, sleeping hands wake and move

 across our dark bed to touch me;

 then the sky’s wings flap silent, owl-still,

 and the runner in grass cannot hear

 as I turn to your light — and I will

 as your face drinks the moon and draws near.

 Clear-eyed morning will find, in the dew,

 my spent body warm, against you.

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Tina Quinn Durham is the author of four poetry collections, mostly recently the chapbook Anticipating Losses. Her poems have appeared in Creation, Heart of Flesh, Space and Time, Boston Review,  and elsewhere. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Arizona State University, and has been a poetry editor at Hayden’s Ferry Review and Sandcutters magazine.