Northern Lights
He said aurora –
I imagined flowers,
but we weren’t lodged
in dreams; embarked
on the haze of my ginger
hair , he told me he had been
a sailor – how he flew
over the seas on his ships.
The man in the suit sailed
on rockets, metal ships
sturdy like success –
inventions of chemicals
a lady wasn’t expected
to know; they impressed
like the skins of paints
on what they believed
was my mind’s petite canvas.
Someone had discovered
rebellious uses of jelly,
liquid that burnt; thick songs
blew from the sideways
juke, much like how every
radio departed from the real
story of the woman in red
with three strange men;
the starlight outside dancing
to mellow tunes of a romance
selling tickets as appeasement,
as distraction, as insistence,
as a memory that meant
to outlive trenches – men
in uniforms, bodies dressed
in flags. I was looking at him
sitting adjacently distant,
his eyes buried under his hat
but his gaze: mesmerising wit.
He knew how the lights rose
far-east like sashaying time,
how my knowing of fugitives
was no coincidence – rugged
word for my pretty mind –
and the story of the lovers
making large screens blush,
ache and forge, the aura was
exotic – entangled in a mix
of trust and faith. Someone
today ripped metal wings
through morale – victory
and baggage. Tonight I sat
in safe lights of warm topaz;
my skin glowing like a goddess,
unaffected by far-audible stifles
of howling ghosts, our country
undefeated, and I unbothered
but about the mystery of mobius
ribbons swirling stars delicately
like ballerinas on poles; his gaze
unlifting as his neck pointed
towards north; close your eyes,
he seemed to gesture, imagine
the dance of conquest – souls
fled too soon – the lights: waves
of open arms; look into the night,
starless and fiery, but lit and calm.
First published in Ekphrastic Challenge for Nighthawks by Edward Hopper