Eleventh Hour
pre-dawn silence uncontrolled,
house, alive with sleep,
calm rampant. coffee steam rises,
clouds kitchen window.
trees still, decorated with frost.
immaculate ice encases empty feeder.
moonlight and nightlights crisscross
doorways.
poinsettia in a corner retains green,
red petals curled black.
stillness unfurled,
resolves morning: not a beginning,
but last chapter of what was.
Sam Barbee’s poems have appeared Poetry South, The NC Literary Review, Crucible, Asheville Poetry Review, The Southern Poetry Anthology VII: North Carolina. His second poetry collection, That Rain We Needed (2016, Press 53), was a nominee for the Roanoke-Chowan Award as one of North Carolina’s best poetry collections of 2016.
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Poetry