Perseids, Later
       

          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,

          and 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.

         

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Copyright © 2018 Veronica Patterson All rights reserved
from Sudden White Fan
Cherry Grove Collections
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission