Michael Carman

After their wedding on the lawn
as afternoon lay in my pocket
I went down to the long meadow

mown for the occasion, to play baseball
in the clearing with the others, the far
end of the meadow open to the high stream

spilling down to us in little waterfalls,
skipping stairsteps over glacial stones,
the bright green clear water's final plash,

a bit of white-lace spittle at the end
before the lower stream bent out of sight
(as if the world refused to mourn the man I'd loved

so much I thought my heart would crack
when I lay down to him)—me now at bat,
the smart whack of hickory, me running flat-out,

from hawthorn bush to boulder to tussock,
my body sliding into home his shoulders
full body on my belly stained with grass.

So that when evening bonfires glowed behind the house
and couples lay in laughter under trees,

I slipped away to walk the hill alone beside the dark meadow.     

Then suddenly—the sting of my predicament—
below me, a thousand green-gold fireflies lit the field
and overhead, like sugar raining through a sieve,
a million trillion silver stars.