Sleetmagazine.com

Volume 15 • Number 1 • Spring-Summer 2023

RC deWinter

skyfall

night swallowed the sun in one great gulp
taking all the birdsong and rose-scent too

the moon’s awol vacationing on another plane
leaving a vast slate of nothing

stretching across the heart of the sky
and the stars have been erased by karma

if it weren’t for the streetlight on the corner
i could be standing in a coalmine

abandoned in another life but i’m upright
and breathing at least i think i am though

i can’t see my hand in front of my face
as i stand in this bubble of nothing

but my heart still aches and your eyes still shine
wherever memory lives so i guess this isn’t the end

of the sun birds roses moon stars world
or me

RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017), New Contexts 2 (Coverstory Books, 9/2021) in print: 2River, Event, Gargoyle Magazine, the minnesota review, Night Picnic Journal, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Southword, The Ogham Stone, Twelve Mile Review, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals. She’s also one of the winners of the 2021 Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Sonnet Contest, with publication forthcoming.