NIGHT SHADE
by Susan Melinda Dunlap

time doesn’t travel
the hands refuse to move
wrinkled and worn
the nails cracked and long
hasn’t the sun gone down?
it is stuck in the sky
only a 10 to 20 percent chance it’s really there
said the meteorologist on the evening news

 

 

Susan Melinda Dunlap is a playwright, poet, fiction writer and journalist. She was published in Bright Bones, an anthology of contemporary Montana writers, in 2018. She has been commissioned as a playwright by the Root and the Bloom and her plays have been seen in New York City, New Mexico, Montana and Kansas. She is the environmental reporter for The Montana Standard, where she covers the largest Superfund complex in the U.S. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College.