Enclosures
︎︎︎ Joseph Massey
︎ June 17, 2026
Idiot music
seeps from a third-floor window—
ripped screen flapping like
a flag rotting in a field
of faded yellow stucco.
*
To sit in a room
as June sun withdraws across
the ceiling and walls;
and to stay in the poem
even as each word recedes.
*
At night, the sound of
water running in the creek
behind the grotto
where Our Lady’s blue gaze cuts
through moth-entangled spotlight.
seeps from a third-floor window—
ripped screen flapping like
a flag rotting in a field
of faded yellow stucco.
*
To sit in a room
as June sun withdraws across
the ceiling and walls;
and to stay in the poem
even as each word recedes.
*
At night, the sound of
water running in the creek
behind the grotto
where Our Lady’s blue gaze cuts
through moth-entangled spotlight.
Joseph Massey is the author of Decades: Selected Poems, and he publishes a newsletter, Dispatches from the Basement. He lives in Upstate New York.
Also by Joseph: In Range
Also by Joseph: In Range