You knew it would capture you

that evening you caught the flash

you recognized only after a heartbeat,

a meteorite over the rooflines 

of yet another childhood home.

Months would go by—even years—before another like it

broke into your life, but it didn’t matter. The secrets

were all you hungered for by then, 

accompanied by charts and websites,

while your peers went to the party

or the winery, the beach or the fair,

leaving you behind.

How many light years ago

was that? How many weddings

forgone, how many promises

left unvoiced?

Take the cap off another lens.

Climb another flint-backed ridge, 

your own breath the only life.

Let another desert cool under

the empty multitude—

here it comes, the solitary

predawn where under that 

abyss you’ll come nowhere

close to the beginning,

hostage again to the focus 

and the stubbornly balanced

tripod under the dazzling 

deepfreeze of light.