West Eugene Dawn, Summer Solstice

 

The first sound is the gong

Of a dumpster, kicked possibly

By one of the homeless twins

Who live at The Mission, followed

By the rattle of glass and aluminum—

Signs of early success—against the cages

Of their grocery carts filled with cans, bottles,

Anything stamped with 5¢ deposit

Next to our state’s abbreviation.

Now the coughing ignition

Of a tow-truck’s diesel, the low

Burbling idle for another

Ten minutes, while the driver

Goes inside for another cup of coffee.

 

We lie holding each other, listening

Until your iPhone screams, and I remind

You again that you should change

The tone to something more musical.

 

You rise, make chai, and sit

At your vanity, carefully applying

Moisturizer and talking sweetly

Before putting on scrubs

To go wash, ambulate, feed, empty

Urine bags for the elderly,

The recovering.

 

Out the door, we hear in the silences

Between the few passing cars beginning

To travel our street, birds—

Robin and chickadee and jackdaw—

Flying or sitting somewhere nearby

Under the morning gray.

And even though there is no sun

It feels good to stand

In the light, tired and bleary-eyed,

On this longest of days.

 

James Alan Gill has published fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in several journals including Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, Midwestern Gothic, The Common, and Atticus Review, and has work forthcoming in the anthology Being: What Makes A Man. 

Photo by Flickr Creative Commons user Chris Phan.

West Eugene Dawn, Summer Solstice

Related Posts

cover of HEIRLOOM

March 2025 Poetry Feature: Catherine-Esther Cowie’s Heirloom

CATHERINE-ESTHER COWIE
Her eye-less eye. My long / longings brighten, like tinsel, the three-fingered / hand. Ashen lip. To exist in fragments. / To exist at all. A comfort. / A gutting. String her up then, / figurine on the cot mobile. / And I am the restless infant transfixed.

Dispatches from Mullai Nilam, Marutha Nilam, and Neithal Nilam

VIJAYALAKSHMI
There is fire everywhere, / both inside and outside. / Unaware of the intensity of the fire, / they maintain silence / like the serenity of a corpse. / From the burning fire / bursts out a waterfall tainted in red. / All over the shores have bloomed / the flaming lilies of motherhood.

Gray Davidson Carroll's headshot next to the cover of The Common Issue 28.

Podcast: Gray Davidson Carroll on “Silent Spring”

GRAY DAVIDSON CARROLL
Poet Gray Davidson Carroll speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about their poem “Silent Spring,” which appears in The Common’s fall issue. Gray talks about poetry as a way to witness and observe the world and how we experience it, and how it’s changing.