I wake to the cheddared moon
outside my window, awake at this hour.
My palms pressed to a warm mug,
unable to see the bottom.
Domestic life has suited me like a gilded watch.
I am a tunnel, even to myself.
Neither emergency staircase
nor polluted air—only darkness,
the muffled sound of the underground.
It’s not that I don’t want a baby.
It’s that I thought I’d belong
to something bigger, first.
I hold my breath until I see the light.
Gasp when the road continues.
If I could choose, I’d be the tunnel
carved through the mountain.
Who doesn’t want to feel complicated?
I watch the moon dissolve beneath the sun.
Before it goes, I relish the morning
heavy with waiting.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 2.
Sara Schraufnagel is a poet living in Colorado, originally from Minneapolis. Her work has appeared in The Offing, Sonora Review, The Fourth River, and Midwest Quarterly, among other publications.
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