Cathedral

The path between the precipitous waterfall
and surge of wind buffeting the cliffside
is an aisle worn down to a fiery altar. 

Warblers and waxwings tunnel the air, 
clipping cinnamon fern with their feathers,
and sweeping the treasures of jewelweed. 

The worshipers find their prayers answered
along the stream banks where the worms
rise to their waiting beaks, and in their nests,

warmed among the pine branches, where sap
scents wind in the sunlight, flickering
between cones suspended like inverted votives. 

The Orphan in the Dark

He sat on the porch each night, staring 
at the trees and the impenetrable dark 
between them. The longer he looked the more
he slipped between the threads of that curtain,
finding distinctions of shade, nuances of color. 
Not just blues and purples, but at their edges: 
creeping moss, seaweed, and pine, thickets
of basil and cadmium folded into the bark,
trickles stitching through the trunks like seams
in fabric, traced by streams of rainwater funneled
down their lengths. It was at about the time he could see
one such seam unraveling, anticipating a glimpse
into the other side, that his wife would join him, 
turn on the light, mending the fabric back
into its familiar shapes and textures: her reading, 
gently rocking on the other side of the table,
slowly distracted by moths that swirled in a vortex 
overhead, beating at the porch light’s glass cover 
like fists of rain. He couldn’t deny the comfort of it,
the warmth of her eyes, her deep thought following
whatever narrative in her book she would later 
tell him as they lie in bed. But he wanted to know 
what was on the other side, that possible world.
For now, he would nestle into her growing
awareness of him, her beauty and love. He knew 
there were things they kept from each other, 
not secrets exactly, but something neither 
could describe, something they held hands 
to forget was there in the dark, waiting 
like a child that had never been given a name. 

MICHAEL T. YOUNG

Michael T. Young’s third full-length collection, The Infinite Doctrine of Water, was long-listed for the Julie Suk Award. He received a fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and received an honorable mention for the 2022 NJ Poets Prize. His poetry has been featured on The Writer’s Almanac.