Syllabus for the Dark Ahead

Jehanne Dubrow

Throughout this course,

well study the American
landscape of our yard, coiled line

of the garden hose,

muddy furrows in the grass
awaiting our analysis,

whats called close reading

of the ground. And somewhere
something will yip in pain

perhaps, a paw caught in a wire,

or else the furred and oily
yowling of desire.

And flickering beyond the fence,

well see the slatted lives
of strangers. The light

above a neighbors porch

will be a test of how we tolerate
the half-illumination

of uncertainty, a glow
thats argument to shadow.
Or if not that, well write an essay
on the stutter of the bulb,
the little glimmering that goes
before the absolute of night.