Stephen R. Roberts
An Edge of Voices In the night, small voicesI hear words, sentences I can’tdecipher or understandthe voices shiftingthrough the dark alphabetwith all the lights outI can’t remember I am notsure if they were on beforeif I turned them offor someone later flickedthe switch on the far wallafter I fell into deep sleepan unconscious state perhapsonly to be awakened byor awake to small voicesdangling from unknown facessomewhere outsidedistant but straying closerthan I care to rememberthe fractured dream loosein the middle of an unfinishedstory interrupted by the very eyesthat found me sleeping. Stephen R. Roberts has been published in Alembic, Briar Cliff Review, Borderlands, Willow Springs, Karamu, Water-Stone, Bryant Literary Review, Yalobusha Review, and many others. His two most recent of five chapbooks are Rhubarb Desoto and Small Fire Speaking In the Rain. His full length collection, Almost Music From Between Places, is available from Chatter House Press.