A wind stirs the doorway sleeper
with a cold toe. The nursing mother
has put her child back to bed.
The waitress counts her tips.
The insomniac, uncompanioned,
hears a siren bark, sees the lights
of the hospital. Illuminated from within,
a Coke machine beckons in red and white,
hut on a mountain journey. Night
covers its shining badge.
Arlene Weiner's poems have appeared in journals including the Paterson Literary Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, and U.S. 1 Worksheets, and in anthologies, and have been heard on The Writer's Almanac. Arlene was awarded a residence at the MacDowell Colony. Ragged Sky Press published two collections of her poems, Escape Velocity (2006) and City Bird (2016). Arlene maintains websites for Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop and Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange. She also writes plays. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Co. produced her play Findings in 2017, and Carlow University Theater performed her monologue "Clothesline" in 2018.
