Monday Poems: "The Darker Sooner" -- by Catherine Wing

Then came the darker sooner,

came the later lower.

We were no longer a sweeter-here

happily-ever-after. We were after ever.

We were farther and further.

More was the word we used for harder.

Lost was our standard-bearer.

Our gods were fallen faster,

and fallen larger.

The day was duller, duller

was disaster. Our charge was error.

Instead of leader we had louder,

instead of lover, never. And over this river

broke the winter’s black weather.

 

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Catherine Wing earned her MFA from the University of Washington. Her publications include the collections Enter Invisible (2005), which was the second title in Sarabande's Woodford Reserve Series in Kentucky Literature and which was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Gin & Bleach (2012).