Jessica Nelson North

From “At Night”

WE have a gray room. The walls are gray and bare.

I have hung pictures and set flowers there.

I have made curtains with wide and snowy hem

For our tiny windows to make the best of them.

You look at me. Your look is still and gray.

Your look is cool and dim and far away.

I cannot open the stubborn husks that shut

Your heart away like the kernel in a nut.

I am afraid of what is in your heart.

I must probe deep; I must tear your mood apart.

Suddenly like a rocket, unaware,

Your eyes blossom and flare!