Sunset at the Reservoir (a Covid Poem)

On a January evening,
cut-glass wind stinging,
the gap where a storm
dropped hundred-foot pines
trumpets a pending show.
West toward the reservoir
a stone-littered trail

clambers beside a rushing aqueduct.
The pond, a cellophane scrim of ice
traps sky in its clear container.

Since spring,
endurance measures in increments.
Fourteen days of quarantine,
six weeks since I saw our daughter,
eight months since you passed.
But here, by frozen water,
minutes fade to 

sable brush strokes,
filaments of yellow gold, 

arctic pink to blush—

a gradient wash
as the horizon renders

one timeless certainty.

The light is always better
after the sun goes down.

Liza Carens Salerno

What January Brings

Cast-iron radiators

hammer before dawn.

Without glasses,

poor vision blurs the morning,

digital numbers haloed in red,

the silhouette on the bureau,

my jewelry box or,

last night's reading?

An image, framed by window,

develops like a vintage photograph

and awake now, I listen

to duct-work detonating

with small explosions,

a vent in the kitchen

clanging in reply.

I try to match

my breathing to 

the rhythm

but there's no tempo,

only familiarity—

the wheezing furnace

as reluctant to wake as I,

on this frozen day

when warming pipes

are my only companions.

Liza Carens Salerno

January 2021