High Beams
High Beams
a benign star follows you, speaks
elliptical futures into exploded nebulae
and yesterday under swaying birches
a moment was lived in the soil
under the light of a waning sun
a broad river runs through you and I
its currents purling over countless fins
memory lost in the kneading, folding
of space time matter
my own home is foreign to me
lingering notes of beloved hymns anathema
dancing round and round in periphery—
an afterimage of high beams on my retina
tattoo ink between assumption and transfiguration
under three decades of dermis
fading under the light of a Jacob's ladder
the Sun shining passing stigmata onto
frames that snap in and out of focus
premonitions like the smell of true cold
sneaking in through an open door
frozen earth mounded on a wooded hillside
a life interloping between the threads and negatives
seconds sewing memories closer and closer
until they, overstitched, pull loose and fall away