Leonardo Chung: BEFORE THE SUN STEALS THE FLOOR

Leonardo Chung is a shortlist winner nominee of the 2024 Adelaide Literary Award Contest in the category of Poetry, with his poem titled Before the sun steals the floor .

Leonardo divides his time between Illinois and New Hampshire. He is a finalist for the 2024 Witness Literary Awards and the 2024 Bennington College Young Writers Awards, and he was recently shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in poetry. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Epiphany, Writer’s Digest, Sweet Lit, Superstition Review, Full House Literary and many others.

before the sun steals the floor

The clock ticks audibly, seconds spilling

into the empty kitchen where only one light

burns, a dim halo above the stove.

Barefoot on linoleum, each step sticks slightly,

cool, forgotten crumbs from dinner press

against my toes. I am free here

from the eyes of day, its ceaseless demands.

Hands brush the edge of the countertop,

fingers tracing paths in the dust.

The window is open a crack, letting in

the smell of moist grass. A car passes,

its tires hissing on the wet street,

a fleeting glance of someone else awake.

I pull a glass from the shelf, the sound sharp

in the silence, and fill it at the tap—

the water’s rush, the gurgle at the drain.

A chuckle comes easy, spontaneous

as I drop an ice cube, watching it skid across the floor.

It meets no ears, no eyes;

bounces off no walls but my own.

Dawn tints the sky bruise-blue;

the day encroaches.

The microwave beeps—

these stolen moments are up.

Leonardo Chung