Bart Edelman
Quirk in the Cosmos
The quirk in the cosmos
Tells me I won’t be here
All that much longer.
I discovered it late last night,
When I was out of sorts,
And took a walk to leave
What little light remained.
The dark was kind enough
To take me in, offer solace,
As if I were an old friend,
Finding me fate worthy.
Soon I entered the empty sky,
Suddenly more at home
Than any earth I had known.
Time folded into itself—
I slept my sorrow away.
Upon awakening, the next day.
I had neither a name,
Nor a reason to be.
Bart Edelman’s poetry collections include Crossing the Hackensack (Prometheus Press), Under Damaris’ Dress (Lightning Publications), The Alphabet of Love (Red Hen Press), The Gentle Man (Red Hen Press), The Last Mojito (Red Hen Press), The Geographer’s Wife (Red Hen Press), and Whistling to Trick the Wind (Meadowlark Press). He has taught at Glendale College, where he edited Eclipse, a literary journal, and, most recently, in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His work has been widely anthologized in textbooks published by City Lights Books, Etruscan Press, Fountainhead Press, Harcourt Brace, Longman, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, Simon & Schuster, Thomson/Heinle, the University of Iowa Press, Wadsworth, and others. He lives in Pasadena, California.