Tenth Place: Payton Bellman

Neighborhood

The soft glow
of two phones
against a quilt,
sweep the crawling
cats across the road
and over the silence
that fences everything
you say inside
the crumpled letters
burning holes
in my pocket.

As the moon drips
evening onto us,
you sleep upon
watered grass until
a stranger shakes awake.

The silence preserving
what could have been,
and the city is alive.