Celestial Event by Brandon Noel

The glass neck of a Corona, drunk and loose
between my fingers, and my head
back over a purple canvas lawn chair.
I was on a hunt for Southington’s stars.

All the little girls are watching for meteors,
my daughters and their cousins,
sprayed head-to-toe with Cutter,
coat smoked by a pile of dried mutt-logs,
burned up in a fire pit fairy circle
made from old, lifted street bricks.

I can see the Pleiades cluster,
I can see the belt of Orion,
I can see the boondoggle neighbors
up the hill, cast in a pale iron glow—
chopdancing—junk haulers.
I can even see the indigo swan of the east
dip its beak in the moon.
I can see the congress of gnomes,
gathered round a stump, disguised as mushroom caps.

You finally texted me back.

(Don’t stop being honest)

I started typing, drunker — looser with my words —

(This month should sing again)
(August should never stop being ours)
(Drive over here right now)
(Bathe in this backyard flame with me)
(Run from where you are)
(Let’s petition the gnomes for amnesty)
(Stand beneath the shower of these falling space rocks)
(I will name them all as they crash the atmosphere)
(and wash us in their alien elements)

Obviously, all that was a nightmare,
and I couldn’t send any of that mess.
There are as many honesties between us
as there fungi in the ground.
(You too. Goodnight.)

 

Brandon Noel (He/Him), lives in Northeastern Ohio (Warren) and has worked as a machinist for the last ten years while writing on his breaks and brief moments of down time. Poetry is this struggle he can’t seem to quit. Sometimes he wins and other times a poem stumble out. He facilitates a local monthly writers group called, “The Makeshift Poets”. Brandon turned 33 last December and has two daughters, ages 10 and 5, whom he raises with their mother.

Follow him on Twitter: @The_Mongrel. He has published two poetry collections: Mongrel (2015) and Infinite Halves (2017).

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