Night Blindness

Beth Konkoski

When you wake me I am blind,

closed around the night

and faded like the quilt,

born of the black still

poking at my skull.

But your insistence grants

me eyes, hundreds

on the skin

as I accept the rhythms

of our sweat.

And then your fingers

string last across my ribs

as you kiss the air goodnight,

and I search the room for shadows

to rock me back to sleep.

Beth Konkoski is a writer and high school English teacher living in Northern Virginia with her husband and two kids. Her work has been published in literary journal such as: Story, Mid-American Review, and The Potomac Review. Her second chapbook of poetry, "Water Shedding," was published in 2019 by Finishing Line Press.