The Eclipse

1
How can one give another a solar eclipse?

Too many instructional text messages
and fumbled cell phone calls,
mandatory interstate pull overs
when thunderheads finally clear,
driving further east out of shadow,
stacking three cheap pairs of shades
on one face and peering through one ply
of facial tissue. Pass the stack quickly.
Hold the tissue an inch from noses,
sit in the back seat behind tinted windows.

That’s how. With five layers of protection.
The wrong tools. Some will go great lengths
behind a guise of exceptional experience
or edification, afraid of being forgotten.

2
If only one could become as permanent,
as rare as a memory of crescent sun,
or better, sunring—if one finds oneself
at just the right place on earth—
one might be remembered at least
every so many years. Remember when she…?

It takes dedication, eclipse chasing.
Ambition to stare down immortality.
One could go blind, one could see
some kind of lingering bitten light
burnt inside closed eyes, bright holes
wherever one looks. An irony of focus.

Don’t worry. Vision returns to children,
lovers, friends. Eyes and skin adjust
to absence and never again.

2012