Perseids

The cosmic magic of a meteor shower and a conversation with the stars

Catheryne Gagnon lives in Tiohtià ke/Montreal and works in communications in the humanitarian field. Her poetry has been published in Black Fox, Rust+Moth, Roi Fainéant Press, Quail Bell, Moon Cola and The Deadlands. When not writing, she can be found tending to her plants, searching for the best window seat at a café or looking for fireflies in dark woods.

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The beach has emptied,
the tide scraping the light away.
All that is left is everything,
folds of darkness gathered like curtains —
a spectacle is just a clamor
to be witnessed.

And this —
this is an exercise in devotion,
the sky shattered into points of light
each one asking
what do you yearn for? Tell me,
what do you want?

I sink into the cool sand
and wanting spreads thick across the sky
and flares into clarity and all of this,
this hurtling of dust and debris sparking
like lamplight through the dark,
all of this is a conversation, a meeting.

It is unclear who beckoned to whom,
but it doesn’t matter: we are both here.
Ephemeral is the exchange, but for a moment
I was fathomed,
all my wanting smeared across
this cosmic palm, settling into its lines.

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