jet-lagged and high on motorbike fumes,
1st taxi ride survived,
we are waiting to surrender — as one must
when all needs re-learning, when even
stars seem an impossibility
(the hundreds of curbside rubbish fires, the wall of smoke
helped banish all thoughts of stars) until
one night when we'd escaped the city,
when we'd climbed higher and
could see our breath and
brian found orion and his belt,
1-2-3
a few saturdays later,
back on our street in our town
getting in our car
(which we drive in a straight line and stop at stop signs because they are there
and honk only when grave danger or supreme annoyance overtake us,
where we obey traffic lights that are always working,
red-yellow-green,
working even when we are asleep and believe we are safe)
i look up
i see my breath and
i spot that familiar 1-2-3 of stars
and even though i know it's already morning there — where
the wool socks hang on the line and the girls toss scoops of water
on the brown dirt, tamping down the dust —
even though
this night has already happened i
hope i am not the only one who was looking
