Moira Linehan: “The Late”
THE LATE
Late spring. Always late, a New England spring.
Even so, it’s mid-May before the small stand
of oaks in the wetlands I face begins
to leaf out. Even then, though, the late first leafings,
limp and wilted-looking, their green washed out.
Yet by summer those oaks will shade my rooms
that face west. Summer sunsets, then at the most
northern end of the western sky, will be out
of my sightline. Still, those sunsets’ dying rays—
peonies’ pink shades, darkening mauves, bursts
of squeezed oranges—like dyes brushed on wet silk—
will bleed back, seep through the leafed-out canopy
before me, the last late-leaving light, lingering.
Moira Linehan is a past contributor to Valparaiso Poetry Review. She is the author of two collections of poetry, both published by Southern Illinois University Press: If No Moon and Incarnate Grace.