The person on the other end of my line tells me there are about 2,000 people in my area without heat or illumination. Or TV. In other words, I’m not alone, and for that I’m grateful. Because, it’s true, misery often does love company. Or so some say. At any rate, I try my best to stay positive. Beginning with being thankful that, though it’s still January, the bone-chilling weather of recent weeks has temporarily lifted. Thankful too that my phone is charged. That the lantern I keep close at hand serves as a night light during this watchful period between the first and second sleeps I’ve recently embraced. Thankful as well that the break in my biphasic sleep pattern has coincided with this outage, forcing me into a much-needed respite from news of the latest catastrophe. Even though l know I can’t erase the images of heartbreak.

second sleep ...
I will myself to summon
hope, perchance to dream

Margaret Dornaus

holds an MFA degree in the translation of poetry from the University of Arkansas. Her short-form and free verse poetry appears in numerous journals and anthologies, including Contemporary Haibun Online, I-70 Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Minyan Magazine, Naugatuck Review, ONE ART, Sheila-Na-Gig, and Silver Birch Poetry. A Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, she received a Haiku Society of America Merit Book Award in 2017 for Prayer for the Dead: Collected Haibun & Tanka Prose (Singing Moon Press, 2016). And as founding editor of Singing Moon Press, she feels privileged to have published several short-form anthologies, including Behind the Mask: Haiku in the Time of Covid-19.