The third night I wake
at half past three and decide
the moon is too sharp

a waning crescent
ready to cut grains of wheat.
I re-read Tu Fu’s

clearly distilled point
“letters are useless” then pour
hard-proof in a juice glass.

Time to leave the house
find night outside with
a box of kitchen matches

my stash of journals
a canister of kerosene
a brush pile woven with weeds.

I flip through dense pages
too many words crowding all
margins, my manic dramatic

cursive, run-ons, broken
fragments dark scribbles and dashes
no re-reads no room

for revision. Throw
them in—mistakes feed the fire
outdated doubts heat

orange and yellow flames
twist in the wind, smoke follows
a purple chicory’s bloom.

Jenna Rindo lives with her husband on five acres in rural Wisconsin where they raised their five children. Her poems have been published in Shenandoah, AJN, Natural Bridge, Tampa Review, Verse Virtual, One Magazine and others. She worked as a pediatric nurse and now teaches English to non-native speakers. She is a runner and competes in 5K races to full marathons.