Dusk
The sky is a sheet
In my hands and my eyes
Open on the riverbank
Where dreams lap the water.
The river is the light
I watch by.
The sun is a stone
Half buried in silt.
Clouds robe the moon.
The current carries the rain
Past me and cottonwoods
Cradle the wind.
Dawn is a net
Catching the tracks.
The tracks stretch all the way
Back home.
Jeffrey Thompson was raised in Fargo, North Dakota, and educated at the University of Iowa, where he studied English, and philosophy, and at Cornell Law School. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona, where he practices public interest law. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including North Dakota Quarterly, The Main Street Rag, Passengers Journal, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Tusculum Review, FERAL, Unbroken, On the Seawall, Willows Wept, and Burningword Literary Journal. His hobbies include reading, hiking, photography, and doom-scrolling on Twitter.