Poetry by Michael Farfel

               ​Wonderlane CC



Lamplight

   I can see the lamplight fading, off beyond the snow. I can hear the trespasses of our breath and feel its form. Its form is hollow, is hallowed, is at each of our lips. Over our shoulders, in the freshness of night, our footprints tell a story of four and sometimes five. Our pattering, little, still-child’s feet. We listen. The wind evokes the night, it crawls under us and moves over us, it cools us. It startles us. The wind. The wind was always there at your back—it was colorless then and now. The wind. It makes a sound like crying. Like our fading youth. Our death.
    I can see the lamplight fading. It is a waning blackness ahead of us. Crowned in the crook of its own iridescence. Crowned as a void is, crowned as the shapelessness of the stars. It is haloed in freckled, speaking, twisting light. Sleeping birds unsleep and squawk as we move closer. Closer to the flickering. Closer to a memory. I am, now. Stuck. The sky does well to pitch itself sidelong and forlorn and it weeps—clouded—storm clouds, storm filled centers, storm gusted growing nighttime.
    I can see the lamplight fading. Tracers of our earlier dreams—earlier that day we wandered through the mist. We wondered when ever it would snow again. When? we asked. We sat out under the soon-willowing of the willow trees and basked in the sun and its warmth fell over us and warmed us and we asked it again. When? The sun never speaks. It never murmurs—only wallows—only ever wills. A will to devour. A will it ever fade? a willingness. I cannot say.
    I can see the lamplight fading. The house. We left the house at night. We walked the streets and heard thunder peeking over the distant peaks. We held hands, the four of us—or was it five. We saw the lamplight fading. We heard its promise—its mechanical whisper—heard it begging us to join. Underneath it. Its electricity groaned out, called out our names, fidgeted in our sockets—it didn’t fade. The light. The translucent city lamplight—the lighthouse—the motion of the settling moon. It did not fade. It was and then it wasn’t. As the snow fell. As we returned.  

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Michael Farfel lives and writes out of Salt Lake City, Utah. His work has been published in a number of wonderful literary journals, all of which can be found on his website, MichaelFarfel.com. He also has a novel coming out this year (2021) with Montag Press. Find him on twitter @onebillionmikes.

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