When bones awake
with the lightness
of settled dust —
innumerate
and wordless
and in a rush –
the irrevocable hour
fateful and august
leaps behind us.
Our mumbling voices
harshest in morning
darkest before rising
begin to animate
the ticking clock.
Jan Herman was born in Brooklyn, in 1942, before it was hip. Now he lives in Manhattan, where it used to be hip. He writes the blog «Straight Up» at artsjournal.com, and is the author of «Fourteen Deformed Sonnet» (Engstler, 2017), «The Z Collection» (Moloko Print 2018), «A Pair of Sonnets» (Cold Turkey Press, 2020), «The Way the Lines Break» (Phantom Outlaw Editions, 2020), «Your Obituary Is Waiting» (Moloko Print, 2020).