AN APPRECIATION

This time, I took the window seat

Awake alone in the darkened cabin,

I slid open the shade, to look for what you

had often marveled at—the aurora borealis

glamorizing the polar route.

But filling the entire frame instead, the dim

connect-the-dots of the Big Dipper.

Big deal. There had to be more!

I stared a while at the curved handle,

the squared-off bowl forever ladling

darkness. So this, I thought, is mine:

soup on a cold night: familiar tune

written on the staff of an empty ocean:

sleeping question mark of ordinary light.

published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Spring 2019

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