Neowise (Averted Vision)

Where the Georgia-15 bottoms out
into graphite backroads past

gas stations and junkyards, white 
neon signs like solar

flares in the swallowing
night, there off the dirt-
   

worn highway, a lamp
on a stone gate keeps

the threshold to the infinite
dark. At the dead

end, I expect wolves
at every turn, hounds

of men to pounce 
from the cricketing 

shadows, but I am alone 

now again. Either we build castles
to the colder air, golden

onion domes to the seat
of some salvation, or else 

we lie out under its
weighted blanket, August 

swollen with insects lost
for blood on the hot 

breeze, honeysuckle 
breathing its candy 

through the chain-link
fence, and wait. Askance above
the violet-pale city, the comet 

arcs away to its farther destiny,
a wild horse tossing its mane

on the prairie of night like a slant
truth, not to retrace

this orbit for six thousand
seven hundred years, until

fleetingly I grasp 
the impermanence of all

things, that I can no more 
guard your beauty than 

arrest this god on its cosmic 

errand through the twilit
void of outer space.

I remember you
that way, flight

of the white-tailed
deer always running

away from me, the shy
graceful animal I could not

make out head on
without running

over. Ненаглядный,¹
the Russians say.

Unovergazable. 
I look out for you

still. Now we’re in
the afterglow, not

the quick blunt head
of ice but the glorious

tail, our ten million miles
of dust.

---

¹ /nee-nuh-GLIAD-nuy/