SOMEWHERE THE NIGHTJAR

Here in the suburb, I miss whippoorwills
singing their cruel names all night.

Their call is glass, the canning jar
I kept at my bedside in summer,

gently tapped with a pencil
to make captured fireflies turn into stars.

Nightjars were my comfort in darkness.
Sleep does not come easily

anymore. I keep straining to hear them,
but there are miles and years between us.

Am I being too sentimental, thinking
of sitting in the yard with my sister,

twilight a blanket around us?
I remember owls and frogs and the creek

restless on its way toward something greater.
Tonight, my sister is in one city,

and I’m in another. I don’t know
what she misses. Even the Luna moth

clinging to the storm door appears wistful
as it listens to the cries of some far-off other.

ELEGY FOR THE FREE WORLD

Somewhere, someone close
to where I am right now

has taken to the streets;
has taken to a life of prostitution; taken
to poverty and penniless philosophy,
sleeping in the darkest, most unpopulated places;

taken to games of stickball and tricks of skateboard;
taken to sodium light shadows;
to running away
from a father who would raise a hand;
to having nowhere else to go
but sidewalks and gutters and alcoves and alleys;

to rioting for the right, any right,
just to say―my life has value―
I am equal to you.

Yes, somewhere
the sun has put its foot down
on a craggy shore; where someone’s ancestors escaped
the persecution of gods, vengeful gods
who can only survive on sacrifice;

where children hide in bathrooms just to stay alive;
where men and women live and die
by the gun, the goddam gun.

And somewhere else, someone begs
a miracle from the moon,
which cares for nothing and no one;
the moon that watches women being raped,
like my friend in the entry of her own apartment;

the moon that gathers refugees of war
into suffering, small tents where people dream
their unforgiving dreams; the moon
that can’t keep up with the sun;
that can’t keep a lover from dying;
that can’t find its way in the dark;
that can’t make anything better,
no matter how much you wish it could.

And here, here is where I make love
to the only person who ever seemed to understand; 

here is where I give up
praying to an unresponsive god;
here is where I march from sidewalk to street to sidewalk to street
to tell the world I am not like other men;

where I’m not like other men,
even when they carry torches,
even when they call out names
trying not to panic when the end of the world is near;
yes, here,

here is where I take you into my arms
and walk with you into the dangerous, cracked, and ruined streets.

David B. Prather is the author of We Were Birds (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2019), and he has two forthcoming poetry collections: Bending Light with Bare Hands (Fernwood Press, 2024) and Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023). His work has appeared in many journals, including Prairie Schooner, The Comstock Review, The Banyan Review, etc. He lives in Parkersburg, WV.