the witching hour

by Jill Kitchen

Chanbora Chhun

back when every evening would unveil the unknown. virginia thick, fig leaves dripping on uneven brick, the way footsteps vanished into the soundless wet. the night another person, another being watching as you walked beneath tree tangle, drove windows down through whispered shadows, forest become car-less curve of highway, country road become empty strip malls and office buildings, traffic lights flashing yellow to no one but you. there were other nights, fluorescent lights after midnight in a building where everyone else was sleeping, the two a.m. train song the only thing that could lullaby you to sleep, its journey parallel to the north south highway, some comfort in knowing it was heading to new mexico, an escape you could make if you decided to leave the snow burn of dawn across mountain peak in the west, one tiny light at the top star-shimmering all night. you wondered who was awake and looking out from 14,000 feet, if maybe they were your soul split waiting out each hour of night. the way roman streets softened beneath angled golden light after midnight, cats emerging from the torre de argentina to summon their city, while club-stragglers disappeared into doorways, chapel doors closed but unlocked. london’s orange-whirred thrum, crackle of glass against concrete, stray mopeds and quiet back gardens, a single laugh like a bird call echoing between walls. and new york where there was always someone awake somewhere, barely a window of time between last call and the city opening, bakery trucks pulling open their metal backs to the scent of bread. you would have to have a telescope to catch the invisible star breath of second when no one was awake, when the city herself was alone.

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Jill Kitchen’s work appears or is forthcoming in Ecotone, FERAL, HAD, The Iowa Review, Lumiere Review, The Night Heron Barks, Parentheses Journal, The Penn Review, Pidgeonholes, Poet Lore, The Shore, Tahoma Literary Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Boulder, Colorado but still dreams of New York streets. Twitter: @jillkitchen Instagram: @msjillkitchen https://linktr.ee/jillkitchen