“Midnight” – by George David Clark

The road dead
   ends into
this northern vista.

You can’t go
   further than
the panorama’s

edge,
   its virgin snow,
that ice-jam twisted

through the firs
   below whose matching
fleece pajamas

gently let you
   know you’re far
too pledged

to all the heat
   at home,
the time you owe

and lease
   and nearly own.
Atop this ledge

the wind is stiff,
   and then it starts
to blow.

But even if
   before
you’ve stopped right here

and winced as each
   tomorrow
déjà vued,

tonight you sense
   a yawn
in the frontier,

which tempts you to
   the fence
and slides you through.

Glance back and watch
   your boot prints
disappear:

the long hand
   inches on,
but not on you.


George David Clark is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Washington & Jefferson College. His first book, Reveille (Arkansas, 2015), won the Miller Williams Prize and his more recent poems can be found in AGNI, The Georgia Review, The Gettysburg Review, Image, Ninth Letter, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. The editor of 32 Poems, he lives with his wife and their four young children in Washington, Pennsylvania.