Construction Literary Magazine

January 2017 Writers Respond

Trying to Make the Work Day Come to Its End

Trying to Make the Work Day Come to Its End
Photograph via Flickr by henrie tsai

In this cold, the roof across the street shivers

                                               with red, the pulse of the sun

left after gray has knuckled.

                                               Dun flakes of dust

on the creamy sill, long-caked coffee nearby,

                                               bassoon on the radio,

its note a dream of yellow throat—

                                               blue song deep for a day

when the cindered roads crystal and fail

                                               as they curve black to carve

the hill, bare roots burnt violet, ripe

                                               for snow mold, ravaging like lichen’s

dream of the verdant—

                                               sustaining, addictive, and green.

Gabriel Welsch Gabriel Welsch writes fiction and poetry, and is the author of four collection of poems, the most recent being The Four Horsepersons of a Disappointing Apocalypse. His work has appeared in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, on Verse Daily, and recently in Chautauqua, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, Adroit Journal, Ascent, and Prime Number. He had a story included as a Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories 2012. Welsch lives in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, with his family, works as vice president of advancement and marketing at Juniata College, and teaches occasionally at the Chautauqua Writer’s Center.