[Rob Wright]

Between the Hours

I like to go out before the last vapor light
winks out. And as I walk along,
watch the flecks of broken glass
shimmer under my leather soles
like a drunkard’s field of stars.
I like to watch lovers search for cars –

shoes in hand, key fobs for their cars,
held high, waiting for the ping and flash of light.
It’s called the walk of shame. But these stars
of private passions seem to belong
to my own memories, as if their souls –
were pinned down and kept in cases under glass.

Along the pavements, rows of glass
windows are not just dark, but voids. The cars
that front them look as if their souls
are, for once, at rest. I hurry on. Daylight
comes and I’m the stranger – belong
to suckers fooled by tides, by moon and stars.

But the sporties are morning’s featured stars,
as they jog by me like spandex ghosts. Glass
on their glowing watches tick off the long
minutes sweated out until first light.
The sound of dog walkers rumpled soles
on slippers is just addible above cars

headed off to parks. Pets coaxed into cars
have names common and mundane – Felix, Star.
Their owners stare at me. Where is your soul,
they seem to say, your counterpart, that light
reflected by a slavish looking glass?
But I’m content to walk apart, belong

to borderlands while others move along
to homes, brewed coffee, and warmed-up cars.
They shower, wipe mist from glass
and see faces – familiar – but starstruck
when membranes between dark and light –
that darkness visible – sticks fast on souls.

I carry no light – real or imagined – on solitary walks.
The souls I encounter, like tarnished glass or stars,
vanish, if I look at them directly or too long.

[James Midgley]

Hi Rob,

I don't think I've read a poem by you before. It's nice to meet you in the text, as it were.

I've been hacking away at a sestina of my own this last week. They are typically tricky to critique and a pain to redraft. But I think this is working pretty well. I mostly stumbled over grammatical choices which are easy to fix. Only a few of the repetends felt over-forced. Details as follows.

I like to go out before the last vapor light
winks out. And as I walk along,
watch the flecks of broken glass
shimmer under my leather soles
like a drunkard’s field of stars.
I like to watch lovers search for cars –

-- The syntax trips me: I expect a further main clause at the end of what appears to be a list structure starting at 'and as'. My suggestion is to take out the first full stop and replace it with an em-dash ('vapor light / winks out -- and as I walk along, / watch') or reiterate the subject ('And as I walk along / I watch').

shoes in hand, key fobs for their cars,
held high, waiting for the ping and flash of light.
It’s called the walk of shame. But these stars
of private passions seem to belong
to my own memories, as if their souls –
were pinned down and kept in cases under glass.

-- Here the 'cars' repetend clangs for me. Maybe an action / verb could be put into this line to give it more momentum -- something along the lines of meaning trying to find their cars / looking for where they parked their cars. This may also be thanks to the double "for [...] cars" construction. No need for the comma at the end of the current line 1.

Along the pavements, rows of glass
windows are not just dark, but voids. The cars
that front them look as if their souls
are, for once, at rest. I hurry on. Daylight
comes and I’m the stranger – belong
to suckers fooled by tides, by moon and stars.

-- 'comes' is a little anticlimactic; maybe a different verb to bring out the gradual bleeding of daylight onto the scene could be found.

But the sporties are morning’s featured stars,
as they jog by me like spandex ghosts. Glass
on their glowing watches tick off the long
minutes sweated out until first light.
The sound of dog walkers rumpled soles
on slippers is just addible above cars

-- the 'glass' repetend here isn't quite working for me yet, and the grammar doesn't align anyway. The singular 'glass' ought to belong with 'ticks'. The construction 'rumpled soles / on slippers' has me first thinking I'm about to have whatever the soles are slapping on (pavement, say), and distracts me for a moment. Typo: addible to audible. Walkers needs a possessive apostrophe -- walkers'. Also missing a hyphen, so: dog-walkers'.

headed off to parks. Pets coaxed into cars
have names common and mundane – Felix, Star.
Their owners stare at me. Where is your soul,
they seem to say, your counterpart, that light
reflected by a slavish looking glass?
But I’m content to walk apart, belong

-- I think the poem just about gets away with 'Star' as a pet name. I'd prefer 'looking-glass' to be hyphenated.

to borderlands while others move along
to homes, brewed coffee, and warmed-up cars.
They shower, wipe mist from glass
and see faces – familiar – but starstruck
when membranes between dark and light –
that darkness visible – sticks fast on souls.

-- The order of events seems a bit strange: homes -> coffee -> cars. Maybe 'homes and brewed coffee in their warmed-up cars'? The last two lines lose me a bit. 'Darkness visible' reminds of Paradise Lost, a reference that doesn't seem to be doing much here (despite the 'souls' repetend).

I carry no light – real or imagined – on solitary walks.
The souls I encounter, like tarnished glass or stars,
vanish, if I look at them directly or too long.

-- I'm not a formal stickler. I can accept the redistribution of the repetends over the envoi well enough -- but am I meant to see 'cars' in 'carry'? Perhaps a stretch too far.

Thanks for the read. I enjoyed wandering through it. This is something of a drive-by -- I'll be back to see what I've missed.

As a final note -- the difficulty with all sestinas is pondering on whether the result rises over a game of constraint. The form is working fairly well to reflect the wandering N, the repetitions of ephemera that arise to him. Whether the content and structure ultimately justify each other well enough is something I can never really be sure of with this challenging form.