Home > Poetry Magazine > Hour

Poetry Magazine

POEM
RELATED CONTENT Discover this poem's context and related poetry.

Hour

By Reginald Gibbons b. 1947 Reginald Gibbons

Sleepless

in the cold dark,

I look

through the closed dim

door be-

fore me, which be-

comes an

abyss into

which my

memories have

fallen

past laughter or

horror,

passion or hard

work—my

memories of

our past

laughter, horror,

passion,

hard work. An ache

of be-

ing. An ache of

being,

over love. An

ache of

being over

love. Like

projections on

the screen

of the heavy

window

curtains, flashing

lights of

a slow-scraping

after-

midnight snowplow

for a

moment pulse in

this room.

Source: Poetry (December 2004).

Biography

Born and raised in Houston, Reginald Gibbons earned his BA in Spanish and Portuguese from Princeton University, and both his MA in English and creative writing and his PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University.

Gibbons is the author of more than half a dozen collections of poetry, including Sparrow: New and Selected Poems (1997), winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize, and Creatures of a Day (2008), finalist for the . . .

Continue reading this biography