Nocturne
the mockingbird calls on
summer moons too
its white throat’s perfume dusting privet blossoms
under the nightshade
as if glazed in a lamination
of snow
Southern nights still cool and recovering
from wisteria:
vines thick as the sweetness of its lavender
precise as the spider
within the lemony petals of each magnolia
and here comes
mockingbird
with the most rowdy of night offices
waking us out of
this dream
Moon Shadow
Killdeer call from a field
green with moonlight
black leaves beyond a creek threading
honeysuckle with wild rose
though bright enough
for moon shadow
it’s too dark to see them
feigning broken wings
if any damage
like the kind you have known
has been brought
to those instruments at all
only the night knows
Moon Pool
the whippoorwill too
like a white orchid blooming in shadow
also wets it mouth
with darkness
round as a May moon when it calls
echoes through trees
stacked black against the mountain
knows what the daylight
can never know
unseen only heard hidden
in the boughs
between dark leaves:
stay and sing to us
sing us asleep until we dream
of stone petals in the pool
above our burial
Night Migrations
Just as I make out lines of geese
that come barking from the dark,
they blend within strands of clouds,
abandoning their calls.
B.J. Wilson is the author of two poetry collections, Naming the Trees (The Main Street Rag, 2021) and Tuckasee (Finishing Line Press, 2020). His work has appeared in The Louisville Review, New Madrid, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA from the Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University and has been awarded residencies from the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon and The Hambidge Center. B.J. teaches at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.