Mist

Gilbert Allen

It is the world wrapped

in gauze, for the sake

of morning rounds.

Lines of white pines

erased, like their ancestors,

like mine.

Cars carry their sounds

into eyeshot

then vanish.

The newspaper naps at the bottom

of my driveway.  Invisible

neighbors are exercising

caution, that small, loyal dog

on a leash.  Behind every spirited

walker, wounds healing.

Each crosses the street, a stitch

in time, a stitch

that will never come out.

Gilbert Allen teaches at Furman University.  His sequence of poems,  The Assistant, received the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Prize.  A long poem, “The World of Tomorrow,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Southern Review. Other new poems have appeared in Appalachian Journal, Measure, Sewanee Theological Review, Shenandoah, and Valparaiso Poetry Review.

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