Twilight
Anonymous America likes
The winter evenings when the
Light slants through the
Windows and covers the
Furniture like chilled honey—
This is the liminal time,
The moment of transition,
Like the moment they say
A soul leaves the body
Ascending these shafts of
Light to fulfillment and
Forever—in this moment,
The air is still like the nonce
Before a sneeze, a kind of
Spiritual caesura, before the
“other” takes over and
Changes everything—
Perhaps it’s limbo—
Perhaps it’s nirvana—
Perhaps it is the roundhouse
Where the locomotives change
Direction on the spiritual
Rail line and the engineer
And the fireman let the great
Motor idle before the sun
Slips behind the horizon and
A new trip begins, one where
We ascend the stairs to bed
Where we can at last
Embrace our weary dreams.
…..
This poem is from the chapbook Anonymous America by Gary Walton (Finishing Line Press), and can be found at https://finishinglinepress.com/product/anonymous-america-by-gary-walton/
Gary Walton has published seven books of poetry. His latest, Anonymous America, will be forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in 2026. His last was Waiting For Insanity Clause (Finishing Line Press, 2017). His novel about Newport, Kentucky in its heyday as a gambling Mecca: Prince of Sin City was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009. He has been nominated for the Pushcart prize twice and in 2010, he was voted Third Place: “Best Local Author” Best of Cincinnati 2010 issue in City Beat magazine. He is an associate professor in the department of English at Northern Kentucky University. His areas of interest include Modernism, postmoderism, and the Irish Literary Renaissance. He received a Ph.D. from the George Washington University. (His thesis was a poststructuralist comparison of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the work of Donald Barthelme.) He is also editor of the Journal of Kentucky Studies, a professional journal of critical and creative work.
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