Because the night was cold,
we could see more of the stars
through the veil of refinery haze
and we nestled each other in blankets
you pulled from the old Nova’s trunk.
Because I blazed with love,
I failed to sense the stench that sullied
the ball field and the pinholed sky
and I lied that I saw each star-group
you hoped I’d prize the same as you.
Because you blazed with love,
you listened to me recite Whitman:
that man tired of facts who wandered, like us,
into mystical moist night air to watch
the stars, unlike us, in silence.
Because we were fourteen,
the cold science of stars could heat our skin,
and we kissed then talked of moons and planets,
kissed and talked of dwarfs and clusters,
kissed till the dome shrank down to us
on that mystical night
moist with Gulf air,
in that field spritzed
with refinery haze.
Susan Luton lives in Austin, Texas, and is a member of the Writers' League of Texas. She has had short stories and poems published in two volumes of The Río Review (Austin, Texas) and two volumes of Journal from the Heartland (Central Wisconsin). One of her essays was published by the American Journal of Nursing and later was included in an anthology titled Reflections on Nursing. She had a feature article published by the San Antonio Express-News.
Comments