Midnight blackbird

One can never prepare enough
For such surprise visits as this

One that must have flown in
Through a window left open

By mother, or was it me
Or by both our common longing

To see the ones that we missed
At such a time so punctured

By distance and an unquiet kind of silence
Which weighs more than all the burdens

That keep us keeping our lives and loves
alive — So now as I groped in the dappled dark

I managed to catch the little blackbird
Singing her distress call in a corner, and trembling

As I held her in my hand, I kissed the visitant
Winging in from a familiar place in the heart

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Some forthcoming online and print, Emeniano Acain Somoza Jr.’s works have been Editor’s Choice in The Poetry Magazine, and featured in the Moria Poetry Journal, Fogged Clarity, Everyday Poem, The Siren, Oddball Magazine, The Literary Yard, Loch Raven Review, The Buddhist Poetry Review, Shot Glass Journal, The Philippines Free Press, Troubadour 21, Full of Crow, Indigo Rising, Asia Writes, Triggerfish Critical Review, Gloom Cupboard, TAYO Literary Magazine, Haggard & Halloo, and elsewhere. His first book, A Fistful of Moonbeams, was published by Kilmog Press in April 2010. This year, ‘Songs of My Mother,’ a collection of five of his poems called a Jog was published by W.I.S.H. Publishing. He is Editor At Large of The Syzygy Poetry Journal and  considers himself the official spiritual adviser of his roommates, Gordot and Dwight – the first a goldfish, the other a Turkish Van cat.