The Second Day of Lent


︎︎︎ Joseph Massey

︎ Feb 20, 2026

Dusk rusts the window in an unlit room.

This ritual of time, what the body abides.

I sit in the center of it, and allow the darkness

to sweep the space bare.

Kneeling, I reach for the word:

the light that remains unpronounceable.















Joseph Massey is the author of Decades: Selected Poems, and he publishes a newsletter, Dispatches from the Basement. He lives in Upstate New York.