PAUL J. PASTOR is an Executive Editor for Nelson Books, a widely-published poet, and the winner of the 2025 J.F. Powers Prize in Fiction. He is the author of several books, most recently The Locust Years: Poems and The Crystal Hand: Poems. He lives in Oregon.
The Night Accountant
On the prime and unmown grass
(This veritable grass of mine),
I watched the fair, unsparing moon
Slide like a pearl on fishing line.
Barefoot in the bowing grass
(And baptized with its seven dews),
I heard the dark Night’s abacus,
And counted what we have to lose.
PAUL J. PASTOR is an Executive Editor for Nelson Books, a widely-published poet, and the winner of the 2025 J.F. Powers Prize in Fiction. He is the author of several books, most recently The Locust Years: Poems and The Crystal Hand: Poem. He lives in Oregon.