Clear

Joseph Massey

After eight days of rain
what isn’t overwritten
under sun. These

asphalt cracks
pushed further apart.
Eight days without

definition: gray walled
the room in, and I
thought I found a way

to stop thinking—to allow
gray to become a sound
I couldn’t hum myself out of.

All I heard was a window.
A long weed beat
unevenly against it.

About This Poem

“This poem arrived after a period of depression that coincided with a week and a half of overcast weather. I felt a particularly gentle euphoria when the sun finally came out; I wrote the poem from within that space, that clearing.”
—Joseph Massey

Joseph Massey is the author of Illocality (Wave Books, 2015). He lives in Easthampton, Massachusetts.

Poetry by Massey

Illocality

(Wave Books, 2015)

"Variation on a Theme" by W. S. Merwin

"The Peace That So Lovingly Descends" by Noelle Kocot

"Sound and Structure" by Barbara Guest

Poem-a-Day

Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends.

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July 28, 2016