John L. Stanizzi

4.08 p.m.

30 degrees

Pushed east to west, the only open water purls against the ice,
orange-light of winter-dusk infuses late afternoon with a
nocturne melancholy – the open water is black and silky,
dark settles in to itself as one final chickadee clicks in the half-light.

JOHN L. STANIZZI is author of – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits – Fifty 50-Word Pieces, and Chants. His poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, The New York Quarterly, Blue Mountain Review, Paterson Literary Review, The Cortland Review, and many others. Stanizzi has been translated into Italian and appeared in many Italian journals. He has read at venues all over New England. Stanizzi teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT, and he lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.