Barbara Sabol

The Longest Night

House hum of furnace, fridge, and charged air switch off. In the power outage’s ink-black silence, walls, ceiling, my hands vanish. Absent moon and street light, the neighborhood is a wilderness. Instead of groping my way to the cupboard for a flashlight, I settle into this nothingness, let the pitch of memory seep in… In my mother’s dim hospice room, I’d sit by her bed, watch her breathing. When she was alert, I confessed the worst of my teenage exploits—sneaking out, smoking weed, playing hooky, hitching to Planned Parenthood. I poured it all out, believing I had to come clean while there was time. She waved her hand in a weak arc, as if wiping steam from a mirror. I could have died happily not knowing that, she said. Now, in the deep mid-winter stillness, I remember the ghost of a smile on her lips. Suddenly, the lights snap back on.

solstice haze
the pinprick
of imagined stars

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About the Author

Barbara Sabol’s books include Mapping the Borderlands (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2025) and core & all: haiku and senryu (Bird Dog Press, 2022). The associate editor of the online poetry journal Sheila-Na-Gig, she has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and conducts poetry workshops through Literary Cleveland. She lives in Akron, OH, with her husband and wonder dogs.

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