When Night Saved My Life

by Ruben Quesada

After “Moonlight” (1893) by George Inness

Come! Come and draw your loose lines
of light against and into my open mouth
like the fine lines of a web being built
along my heavy face; led bellied, blood
clotted clouds of night’s sleep borne
brooding of your bright breast keeping me
from rest while you lay onto my chest—
the weight of your body spread,
your coarse beard presses into my neck.
Give me leave. Leave me like this night
of my marriage to the moon’s urgent flight;
leave me outright for the day’s light—I can’t
bear to close my eyes tonight because
I may not wake to see the end of this night.

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About the Author:

Ruben Quesada is the author of Next Extinct Mammal and Exiled from the Throne of Night. His writing appears in Guernica, BOAAT PRESS, Rattle, The California Journal of Poetics, American Poetry Review, Cimarron Review, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. Find him on Twitter @rubenquesada.