Twilight might be called
........a gray scaf pulled over your lover ’s eyes.
And the bicyclist’s body
........cutting swiftly through it

is a beautifully composed semaphore,
........like the shape meaning makes
in a set of signal lights
........at the end of a darkening runway:

two orange sticks crossed, then waving,
........motioning inward.
I should be telling you about fireflies,
........the containment of light, how we work

to bring it closer to us, into our bodies,
........into a glass jar with a screw-on lid
where it can shine and reverberate
........in the ever-thinning air. Instead

I think of my fifth summer,
........the day I lost one shoe
over the side of a sailboat,
........its sinking away from me

into the untreadable dark.
........The soul is composed
of infinite planets sucked into black holes
........and what comes out the other side—

light or its golden shadow—is each our own.
........Like those fishing boats
that ride out to the world’s curve each evening,
........their string of bobbing lamps

nothing more than an infirm constellation
........pinned to your child’s ceiling.