Effet de Nuit, by Kari Ann Ebert

The Port of Le Havre, Effect of Night, by Claude Monet (France) 1867

Effet de Nuit 

some evenings     as light succumbs 
to the cusp of night     ghosts call to ghosts   I stand 
on the dock     watch the waves releasing their woes     
like the outline of your body     in my bed     the surge and shrink 
of your breath      like sea mist kissing tide     translates into phantom
currents     pulling you away     cresting into echoes of vapor 
I yearn to will you back from horizon     back from edge of world 
but I can only unhitch my wish     open these fists     let fly     
an offering to wind and spume     a small coal of hope     
a carmine glow      mirrors sharp bright sorrow 
lost to the fog

​Kari Ann Ebert

Kari Ann Ebert is the Poetry & Interview editor for The Broadkill Review and the Project Director of Downtown Dover Poetry Weekend. Winner of the 2020 Sandy Crimmins National Prize in Poetry, the 2019 Crossroads Ekphrastic Writing Contest, and 2018 Gigantic Sequins Poetry Contest, Kari’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Mojave River Review, Philadelphia Stories, Main Street Rag, The Ekphrastic Review, and Gargoyle as well as several anthologies. She has been awarded fellowships from Delaware Division of the Arts (2020), The Shipman Agency (2020), BOAAT Press (2020), and Brooklyn Poets (2019).