Your eyes glowed bright on the stage
Softly smiling, you sang among the shining,
dancing lights.
Your lilting voice, rhythmic and carefree
reached out to me,
bled the words whispered to me
as I peered from behind the finely spun cocoon
of wool.
Driving home,
the lights along the street wobbled
as I slipped and bounced in the car seat,
each groove and divot pulsating through me.
The shadowed sky was bruised and
the streets were quiet—slick with rain—muted,
illuminated only by the streams of faded yellow light
winding across the sunken grass blades, which trembled under each droplet swallowed.
A small river had collected along the side of the road
where a billboard, exhausted from the dry sun and whipping rain,
advertised a zebra losing its famous black stripes.
My eyes soon fell closed
to the tune of the car humming
and was awakened only to the doors opening softly
and shutting shyly.
I could hear Orion now,
for whom I’d searched for, carefully folded, then pocketed away
for future use after being found hidden behind the back-yard gate.
It was time to walk,
and careful to step around the snails
leaving their slick trails in the darkness,
I shuffled drowsily to the door.