"Night Sea Dawn II" by Walter King

And there is room in it for love,
the spectacular kind that tears you open forever.
-- John Koethe

What moment would
you choose as the time you felt struck open?
The iris at the moment
of its peak unfolding? One sees
where the cliches
come from, one sees
the velvet dark moving inside.
Too much wasted time
reeds in a melody
of carnivals, wooden painted ponies
circling in a candied light. Too much
wasted: the trapeze artist and his son
giving up suddenly,
the boy falling into the net. When I was
luckiest, the light opened
& grew less sweet
more universal: every cosmic
implication was delivered into my wolf eyes
as light on the mountain, splintered
beyond the self, the self doesn't come close.

Sleeping, I dreamed I jumped
from the treetops
to soar above a green coast,
I was a small
moment living inside itself.
What moment would I choose, dream, opulence,
the night we found each other
after 10 years of punishing grief?
In the landscape, the artist is limited
by the scope of his vision. How about
this moment: wilding
in this prism, exploded
spectacular-visioned present
where I am saying
I didn't know, I didn't know.

Bio: Linda Young teaches advanced, discipline-specific composition in the Literacy Education department at Plattsburgh State University in Plattsburgh, NY. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming at Colorado Review, New York Quarterly, Interim, Mid-America Review, Hunger Mountain, Hubbub, Spoon River Poetry Review, and others.

Contact Linda Young at blyoung@sover.net