DAWN Rest Home

By Russell Atkins
hag’d like of laughter . . .
laughter that hags

now and then
down the hall
more laughing hag’d 

—thither of lit
is of a room thus’d to odd
with about’s of shadow’d
a door’s nearby of at
of it, or out, or of a door’s from 

COLD OPEN
              on somewhere 

       aloud voices Next
GOOD morning, good morning
GOOD morning, sir, 
GOOD morning all,
        (Good (Oh Really
                 Who says so?)
beheld as day “dares” up to up’d
           then falls
                               to eve’d 

meanwhile
then and now
hag’d laugh




                                               [from In the Company of Russell Atkins, 2016]

Copyright Credit: Russell Atkins, "DAWN Rest Home" from World’d Too Much: The Selected Poetry of Russell Atkins, edited by Kevin Prufer and Robert E. McDonough. Copyright © 2019 by Russell Atkins.  Reprinted by permission of Cleveland State University Poetry Center.
Source: World’d Too Much: The Selected Poetry of Russell Atkins, edited by Kevin Prufer and Robert E. McDonough (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2019)