They cling to this American candle
dripping cosmic wax above a hydrogen hunch
simply awaiting
the strike of flint to spark
beneath this moist dark blanket of day-glo blinks

While up above
the face of an unknown god forms from a grey-white
clump of clay-like cloud to purse its lips

a target for their angry prayer
that blooms in sacramental orange
above the concrete altar
on the Cape
they intend to fling from their shoulders

shrugging off
the sweet pull of gravity's pouch
and smear in flamed panache

a spray of hot red graffitti across the fabric
wrapped around this earthy ball
that holds us hostage within its airy crush

---

You and I on concrete slabs
invest our eyes with magic coin to spend a gaze
in its miraculous direction of only up

I pull the shuttered box from canvas bag
to snap the moment shut in silver chemistry

A flash of minor lightning later
I turn to catch your upward chin
your eyes just as fired
ablaze with launch
your being rising in the dark

I move close to accidently bump
assure myself you are still real
and not become some spirit spear searching for the exit
to these stars we watch
beyond this down below on earth

where we wait
and wonder if those tiny suns
can hear our sighs and understand
the measure of this dream for us

----

Along the sand we walk pulled
toward another blinking splotch of red
a smoke shared by a pair of lovers
who claim they've come from Syracuse

and ask if we did see a smear of red
that cauterized the night

"It was a rocket launch" you say

"What luck we did not know"

and somehow I can't help but think
that had we never passed them
holding hands and smoking joints
they might have made a better myth
without our telling them our ordinary truth

---

We move on down this freshly ironed beach
to sit and watch new fractures in the sky
the cloudy god absorbed by windy thought
returns through heaven's sultry gate

and out beyond the blinking fray
a tiny herd of humans
picks their way through sparkling air
to spend a fortnight spinning round our upturned heads

This is the moment that marries our mutual art
for in the morning
when we greet each other with our parchment gifts

our separate eyes will meld this dreamy sight
in simple vows of poetry

while out beyond the bank of clouds
a honeyed moon
sprays drips of golden hope
upon our heads

It might be rain or just the dew
unless the two of us
decide
to make it otherwise