Read Excerpts from The Chaffin Journal

Poetry

Try as he does
with the whole weight
of the night on his back

More and more he misses
the aloneness
he never knew he had

This morning
while walking the orchard
he imagines
the imprint of a single constellation
in miniature
freckling an apple's skin

All night
the apple gleams
until
his bored fascination
bites into
its bent window of light

Breaking its golden skin
he licks every
sticky last
bit of it
off night's
God-drawn fingers