Jacqueline Osherow

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Villanelle for the Middle of the Night

Call it the refrigerator's hum at night,
The even breathing of a sleeping house
As a halo drifts in from a corner streetlight.

Awake, you train an ear to single out
A music jangling just beneath the noise.
Call it the refrigerator's hum at night.

Since you have no real hope of being accurate,
But what you mean is usually as diffuse
As a halo drifting from a corner streetlight.

Tonight, though, it is a concentrated, intimate,
Luring you to store up what it says
(Call it the refrigerator's hum at night;

That, at least, accomodates the feel of it)
To try to temper yearning into praise,
As a halo drifting from a corner streetlight

Tempts an unsuspecting city street
With its otherworldly armory of shadows.
Call it the refrigerator hums at night,
Call it back. It's drifting mourns the streetlight.





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Happy National Poetry Month