Offseason (Italian Sonnet)

Offseason. Dusty windows shuttered tight
In the blackness, I listen to her sleep
The rise and fall of interrupted dreams
Shallow waters. The edge of ocean tide
Lost afternoons. Small moments magnified
Paintings of horses. Landscape stucco scenes
Lined the walls of our hotel by the sea
She huddled close, the one I still rewind

No histories or stories to be read
Baggage lost or never bought. Two unclaimed
By a future that wasn’t ours to see
Magic. In the hollow of our bed came
The turning of a string of present days
Fading, I still remember how she sleeps

Doug Hoekstra is a Chicago-bred, Nashville-based writer and musician, educated at DePaul University in the Windy City (B.A.) and Belmont University in the Music City (M.Ed.), whose prose, poetry, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous print and online literary journals. His first set of stories, Bothering the Coffee Drinkers, was published in April 2006 and earned an Independent Publisher Award (IPPY) for Best Short Fiction (Bronze Medal). Ten Seconds In-Between, his latest collection of short stories (June 2021) won the Royal Dragonfly Award for Best Collection of Short Stories, 2021, finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2022. Hoekstra has also worked extensively as a singer-songwriter with eight albums of original material on labels released on both sides of the pond, propelling touring throughout the U.S. and Europe, at bookstores, coffeehouses, clubs, libraries, pubs, festivals, radio stations, and castles; solo and with combos in tow. Musical highlights have included Nashville Music Award and Independent Music Award nominations, as well as many groovy happenings. 2021 also brought a new album of music, The Day Deserved, well-received in press and radio outlets. (“A lot of people write songs, Hoekstra writes five minute worlds” – Wired Magazine).