Impossible Sunrise

As if this city, composed of skeletal pink coral,
arose from the basin
of a dried-out ocean
swept by desert-spanning wind
and now echoes
through my sleeplessness again,
a speechlessness
ripped apart by joyriding motorcycles.

Below my open window, a few walkers
patrol their loneliness
nightsticking their panting
into personal maps
only they know.

Retracing my way
backwards, I can’t fathom
how the years have raced
so fast to maroon
at this breezy perch
of the awake universe?

The moon’s cleanliness
sweats through the minutes
as night cracks to mica shards
before dawn’s stampede of horses.
I watch the tingling black façade
crumble and turn toward
what must, must wake me.

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G. H. Mosson is the author of four books and chapbooks of poetry, including Family Snapshot as a Poem in Time (Finishing Line, 2019), and coauthor of the forthcoming Simultaneous Revolutions (PM Press, 2021). His poetry and literary commentary have appeared in The Evening Street Review, Measure, The Tampa Review, Smartish Pace, Free State Review, Rattle, and The Cincinnati Review, and received four Pushcart Prize nominations. He has a BA in English from Portland State University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, where he was a teaching fellow and lecturer. An attorney since 2012 he enjoys raising his children, hiking, and reading.