Lee Avenue

By: Benjamin J. Kirby

Crash helpless against the molten surface of God’s angry sun

Wound the mighty starlight

with a meager shadow

that lands

Under my feet on the summer hot sidewalk

of Little Rock

walking north, past the school, past the church, past the park

past a store that sells fresh coffee smelling of exotic places

Rebound sideways to the choking reaches of forgotten space

They call it dark matter, unseen

but so is air, so is oxygen

This is the course of your finality, beyond a billion miles of empty flow

Until I am standing on the cool, shaded grass, not far, not far

from the churning river’s edge, water rushing under the dam

and try to watch in peace imagining a catfish as big as a tree

Honor your proximity to disaster

Out, out around the unknown tendrils of the invisible

and the shining visible

Gravity pulls us, pulls us beyond time itself

to our pondering knowledge, it remains limitless

As our few more weary steps up the station hill

to that old worn out bar

Fountain Cokes and fried clams, red beans in a pot over rice

We played pool as we got older, got over the video games

Off into a stardust cloud of gas,

forgotten pieces of a broken planet’s empty iron core

Close enough, close enough to see you on a wet street

in the cold of late October

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Benjamin J. Kirby writer and father of three living in St. Petersburg, Florida. His poetry can be found in more than a dozen literary magazines and journals. For eight years, he produced the award-winning political blog The Spencerian. Short stories, poetry, and more can be found at BenjaminJKirby.com.