Night Noise
All night beneath the eaves the sound of something
the wind can’t touch, something steady, repetitive,
liquid, something loose-latched, a softness
the way a stream slides tumbled and bruised over stones.
It is only rainwater plummeting the downspout.
A specter-sound, shape-shifter in darkness, it speaks
a language that says listen, that says steady, that says
heart be still, be quiet and wait for the light to dawn.
But something else beneath my ears hums like a thrum
of blood running away from my heart as I search
the predawn drizzle, deck boards wet beneath my feet,
lost on a slow glide losing altitude, listening
throughout the night, ciphering sounds of heart thump,
rain drip, like metronomes tock-tocking time.
• • •
Frank Jamison’s work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Nimrod, South Carolina Review, Big Muddy, and many others. His poems have won the Robert Burns/Terry Semple Memorial Poetry Prize and the Libba Moore Gray Poetry Prize. He has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a member of the Tennessee Writers Alliance, the Tennessee Mountain Writers, the Knoxville Writers’ Guild, and the Alabama Writers’ Conclave. Frank lives and writes beside the Tennessee River in Roane County Tennessee.