Dorothy Howe Brooks

Late at Night, Waiting for My Son to Come Home

The thing that can’t be said. The dread.

Shadows grow large as night comes on. Stillness slips through the windows, settles over
the room, the city. Absence grows larger, grows heavy. Too heavy to bear. Stillness,
shadows. And waiting.

The phone ringing. 4 a.m. Ringing. Ringing. Like a feral cat.

The man on the high wire sways in the breeze. Below, the falls. The boy swimming,
sharks in the water. The child at the zoo slips from his mother’s arms. The wolves.

Storm shutters are up. Life jackets fastened. Sirens. Clouds on the horizon.

Waiting, listening. For voices. For the sound of a car. For a door slamming. Then the
ringing.

Not the storm but the cloud, black as an abyss,

bigger than the sky.

Dorothy Howe Brooks

writes poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous literary journals, including Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, Louisiana Literature, Bayou, Poem, and Mangrove Review. Her second chapbook, Interstices, was published by Finishing Line Press, and her first full-length poetry collection, A Fine Dusting of Brightness, was published in 2013 by Aldrich Press. She lives with her husband in southwest Florida.