Rogan Kelly

Rogan Kelly’s poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Citron Review, The Cortland Review, The Penn Review, Pidgeonholes, Small Orange, Tiferet and others. He has one chapbook, Demolition in the Tropics (Seven Kitchens Press 2019). He was a finalist for the 2018 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize. Follow Rogan on Instagram and Twitter: @JerzyPoet

Wonted Color of Starlight

You arrive impromptu in gym clothes with a good sweat on. Your skin aglow by the coffee shop sign in red that reads: closed. You are out of breath. I left my car below in the parking garage; got turned around when I came up for your hotel. The energy about us is colorable; the risk \ after 10 pm on a Tuesday \ in Newark \ and the newness of our intimacy barely contained as we jaywalk across the street to your room. I chatter at you from the door jam while you disappear in the steamed mirror. 

We make it to the rooftop right before close 

hide on the stair with the door just ajar. 

Wait for staff to descend by the service car. 

Patch of Jersey sky, Whitman’s Mannahatta, 

your dress in the lowlight city fabric falls away