WOMAN AT A MOTEL WINDOW
Frost from her breath on glass,
Thin arteries made dark
By a slow finger’s pass,
Are the hand’s speech, and mark
As something to be said
Her waiting emptiness.
She writes; behind her, a bed,
On which her form’s impressed.
There’s no one to watch her letters
Take form a moment only.
What secrets she has set there
Are legible to her only.
Is it the fear of dawn
Or something from the past
Still present that she’s drawn
There, where it will not last?
Each night’s a rented room,
Each thought a humid blur,
And dawn lies in a tomb
Scratching to be disinterred.
— James M. Wilson
This poem appears in the April 11, 2016, print edition of National Review.