At eight p.m., a summer sunset time,
the little song of light along the sill
arrives so soft the blackbird’s lilting lines
dip into reverent silence, standing still.
All day the northern windows wait until
this golden evening sliver touches down
to sing across the curtains with a trill
and bathe them in that long-awaited sound.
Across the street, the music glows, resounds,
in white the morning, gold the afternoon,
each day a window, turning round and round
with little songs inside of every room.
At eight p.m. I think I know the tune
but then the light is gone—so soon, so soon.
Claudia Schatz (she/hers) is a master’s student at the Middlebury School of French and lives in New Haven, CT, where she reads, writes, and makes the storytelling podcast Rearview. Her writing has appeared in The Postscript Journal, Euphony Journal, Artifex Magazine, Five on the Fifth, and The Hamilton Stone Review.