Lines That Wouldn’t Let Me Sleep

You remember when you were young

And you held the night in the palms of your hands

In the lines on the insides of your fingers

And in the creases of your elbows

Sometimes you can still sense little bits of it, there,

Hanging,

Threads of starlight and midnight city air stuck

Under your nails and behind your ears

But when you look in the mirror

It’s a grown-up who looks back,

Haggard, adult,

A woman whose circles under her eyes tell more

Than her cracked lips ever could.

By Betsy Jacobson, 6.2.2011

In Which I'm Tired of August.

it's floating in
just behind
these last lightning storms --
and the leaves won't change
and the sky won't turn that proverbial
iron grey
but we'll feel it
we'll dance in it
we'll sit by our fires and breathe
over hot cups of cider or cocoa
knowing somewhere it's cold enough
to see that breath before rosy noses
somewhere
notebooks and pens and brand new shoes
mean something is changing.