The Light, The Blue by Gina Keicher


 
I cannot fault the man who says when we die we go cosmic
but I think he is full of it. Stars or something. Space dust.
Particles forming a cloudstream to chart with technology.
Silt clouding water as a swimmer wades into the ocean.
Ash fabric cascading from a bolt in a craft shop
as the seamstress yields shears. We go everywhere.
The street is quieter this week without cars of students
shotgunning beers at stop signs, throwing cans
and single-serve bottles out the windows. We adjust
then slip to a less mappable pain than the mountain
when the ranger rounds through in the tan car. All winter,
shade bruises the light, the heavens, the blue.
Thunder lights a path through sky and sky and sky.
The magician with his suitcase asks, Do you want to see some magic?
What they sell in the valley they sweat to make
and swear by. A near-invisible pain like ivory ribbon or light.
 
 
Gina Keicher is the author of Wilderness Champion (Gold Wake Press, 2014) and Here is My Adventure I Call it Alone (dancing girl press, 2015). She is an associate editor for Black Lawrence Press. She lives in Ithaca, New York, where she is a lecturer at Ithaca College.