Through the Nights: Allan Briesmaster

I am blest being beside you through the nights.

Housed, fed. No pressing threat. No frivolous wishes.

And without any need to dream of you -

although you grace my dreams from time to time.

We might go on a travelling adventure,

to rediscover some far-different land

that welcomes us again at port and shore.

We celebrated in a sweet embrace there.

But being asleep together is itself

embrace - with its accompanying steady,

near- indiscernible hum of breaths (except

for patchy snoring both can tolerate) -

dissolved from daylight boundaries in this

warm, unimpeded, open-ended flow

while we enwrap within our mutual gift

that self-maintains its effortless repair. 

from Later Findings

Ekstasis Editions Canada, 2024

Later Findings is Allan’s tenth full-length poetry collection.

He lives inThornhill, Ontario with his wife Holly, a visual artist.