Nightlights can be seen decades away.
They hit your senses first, like
sweetened milk, flying cockroaches,
leopard spots moving in grass,
or an old friend's hacking fit—
but you can't be sure. Steering
toward the yellow pulses
like your ancestors toward a mountain
rumored to have gold, you think you
detect patterns but not what they mean,
the pulses so faint
they might be imagined, like maybe
from an armada of stalker pirates,
a spiral galaxy made of poisonous ice,
your grandpa on Greyhound for three days,
moth carcasses on gossamer,
glow-in-the-dark flying squid
circling a Fat Buddha on a china plate,
the cushion you, laughingly, flung
that knocked down and broke
your mother's beloved vase.
How she glued it. Your guilt to this day.
