Conditions

by Stephen Hitchcock

Peace then becomes a late afternoon in South Georgia where
dust motes ascend and will descend the slow
breath of the window like so many angels
in Jacob’s dream when the burnt sun of August comes
to rest on my own face as on a sundial

so gauzy like the white threadbare undershirt
I stole from my father’s oak-stained dresser, how
in love I wore it every day he was away before it tore.


Stephen Hitchcock grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and attended college in Chattanooga, Tennessee. After living in Vancouver, British Columbia, for the last several years, he has now settled in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he is a teacher.