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A Rare History

On the eve of Guy Fawkes Day, fireworks had been planned for London. Figures and animals appeared in the sky and seemed to move by degrees, shimmering as they vanished. Incredible detail! Beneath these, bonfires consumed the monster in effigy. -diary, unknown author

Now the question arises, How will I judge you?
What flights of fancy we have had together!
The crows have come down, observant as deacons, to munch in the evening:

then to fly away to wait in the night
in whose sediment we have steeped our eyes.



But how will I judge you?



Then it occurs to me: the sky must grow bright and painted with
                        fireworks;
faces appear, change expression, mingle; three elephants step trunk
                        to tail
before dancing out of light as though a wing swept the sky clean.



You and I will stand on the hill sloping off toward old trees
                        (such old trees)-
elm trees I think they were
in those smuggled notes that crossed between our childhoods.



I wonder: How will I wear this glove of night
when I finally touch you after all this time, at this tree
which lightning marked from limb to root so many years ago?



"Wear this glove," you say to me. "It will hide your hand, disguise
                        fingertips,
soften knuckles grown impersonal with years. Wear it
as you touch me, reach up inside my skin,
tearing me from one extreme to the other."



I do neither thing.



Thunder rides high in the air. Sparks dissipate and
hang in the shadow-trees--not falling or
extinguished--the way things are written later.

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