Perseids, Later
—for Evan
A tease of clouds intermits
the searing blueblack. Cicadas
drone in a 3 a.m. silence
and I fall back
onto an Army blanket, 1956,
a meadow outside Ithaca, lying with sister
and brother, in the grip of fierce
dreams and longings, my skin
alive with up,
drawn to the studded dark, whose
tiny burns might be those of a sparkler
twirled too fast.
This night, as you sleep inside,
I lift binoculars to contain
these pricking lights, which
perforate,
yet still pull me
to them. Your dream wafts from the house,
a stay. In waning heat, in my thin
nightshirt, I feel
the years accordion,
and I shiver. Each of us
gets to be vast sometime. Three
meteors streak
the length
of a star-glazed strand
of my hair. How can the birds sleep
in this confetti of light?
Veronica Patterson
Driftwood Press Review
