'Scene'

1.

It's strange how stars triangulate
and then multiply, outside a bus moving across states

2.

If it was day instead, my heart would beat
irrational fear throughout my being
falling into the sky as gravity laughed
my hands cold, shaking

as if I had been running too long

3.

But it was night, the dark was kind
and after a while the eyes adjusted themselves
wide enough to be mirrors for ochre lights

4.

I whispered against the sound of a child singing and air conditioning
photographs yellowing in my mind

(we were sixteen, he was seventeen
we were outside a church too early in the morning, discussing the afterlife)

I whispered to her, out to an uncertain future:

5.

When we die, that's where we go
into the sky, each of us eventually a star
you, me, and everyone else we'll know

(some will be brighter but only because we compare them to the others
each one can be seen, if you look hard enough
if you care to remember)

6.

And she smiled, my daughter, so far away
I imagined her trying to hold my hand
the effort in her tiny fingers

slowly understanding
form and meaning.

( _")