frances boyle

Dreamed I flew to Guatemala
ran over a dog with black tracks.
Just another gringa.

I fumble toward creatures
of darkness knowing I too
am one, in that shadowed place.

Darkness, silvered by moon,
but what's visible in that light
is elusive, perhaps illusory.

Night-weighted by day
                        and by night,
                                    illuminated.

Let me reach beneath layers―
flimsy gauze, harsh canvas, thick
felt―to grasp a light that chimes.

The nightjar, large-eyed gliding dusk
hunter. Its nightchurrs jar the sky,
peal out as light, distill its essence.

Frances Boyle is the prairie-raised, Ottawa-based author of the poetry collections Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House 2022) and  Light-carved Passages (Doubleback Books 2024), and of a short story collection, a novella and a forthcoming novel. Recent recent/upcoming publications include Glass Poetry, The Ex-Puritan, PRISM, South Dakota Review, Vallum and Ampersand.