Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
William HartNovember 19, 2007
He moves with burglars and police
in the hours of our deep sleep.
His hump-backed, pregnant silhouette
strides by dark houses
as streetlights push
his block-long shadow.
Sometimes he comes upon
a parked car containing
things a boy shouldn’t see.
Sometimes a sense of power
wells up within him
an adult omniscience
possessed by those who know
the secrets of the night.
His spinning flopshots
slap down on porches
as birds begin to chirp.
Dew is beaded on his shoes.
How fine and clean the world smells
when day is but a purple bruise
upon the brow of night.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

A community gathers in resistance. Photo by Dany Díaz Mejía. Photo courtesy of Rene Aleman Resistance Camp.
“We are alive only through the grace of God. At one point, I got messages saying someone had offered 1 million lempiras [$38,000] to have me killed.”
Dany Díaz MejíaJuly 02, 2025
Workers unload food commodities from Catholic Relief Services and USAID in the village of Behera, near Tulear, Madagascar, Oct. 22, 2016. (OSV News Photo/Nancy McNally, Catholic Relief Services)
The end of U.S.A.I.D. will result in the loss of a “staggering” 14 million lives by 2030, including the deaths of 4.5 million children under age 5.
Kevin ClarkeJuly 02, 2025
Homily for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, by Father Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinJuly 02, 2025