Hope for the Milkman

Vincent Hostak

February 2, 2025

“I am the milkman of human kindness
I will leave an extra pint” - Billy Bragg

My mind yearns to taste the morning 

But my body will have none of that 

It eats the night that ate the day 

Sleeping forward into the next 

I cannot hear the chimes

But know they must be there

The milkman’s bottles clinking

As he walks them up the stairs

I once saw trees at this hour 

Their black bark nearly invisible 

Before they turned a chocolate brown 

When a starling’s whistle scraped the air

Even then the milkman’s rounds were done

Back to the farm and the lowing cows

The sharper sound of empties swaying

Stinging the ears of a tired herd

I hope to sometime wake and greet him

In the quiet nexus of the days

And like him into a compass lean

And see the stars that are hidden there

Vincent Hostak is a writer and media producer from Texas now living near the Front Range of Colorado south of Denver. His recently published poems are found in the journals Sonder Midwest and the Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas and as a contributor to the TPA. He writes & produces the podcast: Crossings-the Refugee Experience in America.