Photo by Christopher Raley

First Dawns

by Christopher Raley

Thick boiling rises
in the cold kitchen
of the cold morning.

One yellow light spreads
soft wings over stove
and sink, the white counter.

Among these first dawns
of new fall, sunrise
hardens crystal reds

from condemned night
and steel shadows
off bluffs, off their oaks.

These first dawns’ first things
shrink on thick boiling,
cold kitchen, yellow light.