POETRYMeteor Shower/Meeting-Her ShowerKai CogginWriter of the Month
"Perseid Meteor Shower" © Flickr user Trevor Bexon
This is the first time
we really made an effort
to watch the meteor showers
that are promised to be
quite a magnificent spectacle tonight.
Earlier she was running around the house,
going up and down to the garden
bringing supplies, a tiki torch,
the grass mat, pillows, sheets,
all the goods necessary for
a night time show in the expecting sky.
She made a bed for us outside on the deck
directly under a piece of open heavens carved out of treetops,
and we waited until the stars started peeking
out through the moonless twilight
before laying out on our spot of green.
The time had come.
Night had made enough of its mark over the face of day,
and we trudged down with champagne
to claim our meteor watching spot,
and I did not know I would be meeting her again.
We laid on our backs, balancing
champagne flutes on our laughing bellies,
delightful effervescence rising up to meet the stars,
jiggling giggled gold and glass,
our smiling mouths and bright eyes,
the open firmament,
and my love next to me, waiting for the gods
to connect the constellations with streaks of fire.
Silence echoed our loving whispers,
as we made out shapes and faces in the silhouettes of treetops,
and then WHOOOOOOOSH….
a slow fireball moves across our cutout plane of open sky,
flames trailing its fiery arc, and we ooh and ahh
and our pointing fingers meet in the air,
trace the fire-line flying then falling behind the mountain’s horizon.
Look over there!
Ooh, another one there!
That one is huge!
Wooooooooooooooooow……
Fireball after fireball soars through
the dome of heavens,
and she points them out to me
like a mother showing her child every hidden wonder,
like a lover enchanting me with magic held in her hands,
this is no disappearing act,
this is forever and always, looking up together,
remember our starry homes,
knowing we will always meet where there is a trace of light.
Meteor shower,
this beautiful meeting-her shower
of love
between our wide open hearts,
under the stars,
I meet her again for the first time,
with all the wonder and magic and emotion
I have always held for her,
I lay back and tilt my head to face her,
I see the sky fire trails bouncing light off her blue eyes,
my personal domes of heaven I peer into
to find myself,
our entwined spirits take on fiery flight
and we ride through the atmosphere on the tails of meteors,
streaking our love story in light and fire
for all the world to see.
Kai Coggin is a poet, author, and teaching artist living on the side of a small mountain in Hot Springs National Park, AR. She holds a BA in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A&M University. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Blue Heron Review, Lavender Review, Broad!, The Tattooed Buddha, Split This Rock, Yellow Chair Review, ANIMA, Elephant Journal, and many other literary journals, as well as anthologized in several international collections. Her first full-length collection PERISCOPE HEART (Swimming with Elephants Publications 2014) is available at kaicoggin.com.
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