Perseid Earthgrazer

This is the best time to watch for meteors;
before the moon and obscurity swallows the dark.
Asleep on the car-seat, driven by conviction,
I follow the vapour trails furtively,
witness the spectacle for myself.
Abruptly we halt beyond the marsh hollow and
your face is no longer scarred by the light-noise.

Your arms are a safe place to construct an observatory.
I follow your eyes and the radar dial of your forefinger;
the radiant of Perseids tapped out like little blips on screen.

Anticipation held in the space-ache vacuum; an uncertain wait.
Specks drift through the tepid fluid,
converging like blood in my skull.
Fantasies stream like ribbons of flotsam
my tender sinews endure.

A soul's first time is always the fiercest
through perishing province, a shock of dusty ice.
That brutal atmosphere engulfing break-neck missions -
the right to be grounded, to find a home.
That is why men believe they saw a star fall.

Perseus showers the earth so briefly
skims the horizon like stones across a lake.
Sudden blood-beads pepper the black cerebral canvas
before receding into secret folds of space.