after Henry Vaughan

The second time it was that smaller light

a flashlight flickers, battery almost dead

but these mazurkas lit up the Western sky

each instant panoramic, grace dechained from asking,

the declaration of a wish fulfilled

such as the full moon scatters with its silence

on the darkest dark waters at summer’s end.

The first time I experienced it in Braille

though I’m 20-20 with glasses and the shell

I stopped to reach along the beach stood still

seconds before the ground under my step

curved outward, the surface of another world.

I was the shell and on the shell.

In the interior I whorled, my own echo

my soul, the shell. There was an angel,

a fistful of wings. I’ll have to tell you

the rest tomorrow. When you’re more receptive.

Peter Cooleys twelfth book of poetry, Accounting for the Dark, was released by Carnegie Mellon in February 2024. 

Also by this author
Published in the May 19, 2017 issue: View Contents
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