Peter Vertacnik
–after Patric Dickinson
All the doors are locked.
The dog’s been walked.
Each tap, each burner off.
No dome-light glows in the garage.
Through that cracked blind
the streetlamp doubles
as your moon. You sleep alone
but this bed’s warm.
Your dreams won’t paralyze
or force contortions. Your face,
though pocked and stubbled,
softens. The ticking clock
has gone; your pulse
marks time, throbbing
through the splinter
burrowed in your palm.
No termite, no errant spark
will test these walls tonight.
Peter Vertacnik
Peter Vertacnik’s work has appeared recently in 32 Poems, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Hopkins Review, and Literary Matters, among others. A finalist for the 2021 Donald Justice Poetry Prize and the 2022 New Criterion Poetry Prize, he lives in Florida.
Art: “Tea Party in the Mountains” by Van Lanigh, Oil on Canvas