In a Darkening Sky – a poem by Jacqueline Jules

In a Darkening Sky

The sun peeks through
a gray wool sky
like a shutter 
opening in a camera.

There’s a sense of something
bright behind the cloud cover,
something worth standing
in place until my breath returns.

Swallowed beneath, 
all I want is the chance 
to keep staring at the light 
pouring through a single hole 
in a darkening sky.

Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Her poetry has appeared in over 100 publications. Visit her online at http://www.jacquelinejules.com.