Photo by Kristin Snippe on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/7I4TyDfRfLM

Shutting the Chickens in for the Night

In the windowless breezeway of the barn, 

golden evening light was scattered over

the aged wooden slats in bars and spots. 

What source? It took stepping toward

the center of the open space, looking up 

through gaps between boards, hayloft floor,

then looking beyond to see that the light 

was falling down through the louvers 

of the cupola, dashes and dots like code, 

alphabet, constellation perhaps, the sun, 

admiring of the night sky’s art, making 

a bit of its own at the end of the day 

before the bats woke, began their ballet.

Daye Phillippo

Daye Phillippo taught English at Purdue University. Her poems have been nominated for aPushcart Prize and selected by ETS for inclusion in the AP English Exam. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming inPoetry,Valparaiso Poetry Review,The Midwest Quarterly,LETTERS,One Art, and many others. She lives and writes in rural Indiana where she hosts a Poetry Hour at her local library.Thunderhead, her first collection, was published by Slant in 2020. Her second collection of poems,Blue Between Owls, was awarded the 2024 Codhill Press Pauline Uchmanowicz Poetry Award and is forthcoming from Codhill Press. To read more of her work, please visit her website:

www.dayephillippo.com