Corbett Buchly

shadow correspondence

the light cuts a white circle
from the poem as one boy sleeps
nearby I read by flashlight

a door shuts somewhere
distant the older boy settles
I reread the lines in the dim glow

seeking to decipher the code
hidden in plain speak
like a wartime intelligence officer

with his ear pressed to the radio
knowing there are secrets
hiding in the banal chatter

the darkness around me
like the bead of a sight
drawn on the riddle, rising

falling, as shadow
speaks its own agendas
my children are in the darkness

the text once disassembled
spells out the dawn

Corbett Buchly’s poetry has appeared in Barrow Street, The Interpreter’s House, North Dakota Quarterly, and Dream Catcher. He received a Masters in Professional Writing from the University of Southern California. He and his wife currently reside in Northeast Texas with their two perfectly unusual sons. You can find him online at buchly.com.