Twilight Triad
– For Jazmine
1
In civil twilight birds are ecstatic. A slick of gear oil in a storm puddle fractures into rainbow. The bookends of day,
twilight frames its story in doubleness. It brings and takes the tempered sheet music of sky.
2
The brighter stars and planets, the horizon, the weather patterns we have assembled into, all on stage. The turquoise patina of nautical twilight calls the curtain open and shut like a dilated pupil in the iris of earth.
3
Jazmine, too, a twilight zone where each might claim her. In the near dark of astronomical twilight when buckshot
pummels the ore stained fabric of impending light, stories sketch across the almost-dark palimpsest of heavy blues.
I pull the last half-lit planet from the night, spike it, and move myself into the shape of a fading firework and merge into her wake and Jazmine curtsies in the alpha and omega of dimmed stage lightz.
Tybee Island
My grandfather’s home
Swims with visitors, swimming in
Salt water and sandy eddies. And marsh mud,
Slick, seeping into skin, sneaking beneath the shoes
We wore into the water to ward off
Oyster cuts. He stood tall, shaded by palm
Fronds. A slouching cactus, its pallid flowers
Brushing the marsh grass, kisses children’s
Ambling fingers. It stings, but not for long.
My grandfather grew up on this street, he
Spent his life here. I spent my childhood visiting;
Sandy skin and peppered beard, rough hands,
Gasoline clinging to his shirt, back bowing to pick up
My baby sister. Days on the road end
In golden light through Spanish moss, gravel
Crunching beneath car tires. Stumbling from my
Stagnant seat to meet him in front — into his
Strong arms I run. Each time, those arms are less strong.
Soon enough, I’m running to a cot in the living room.
Soon enough, I’m not running at all.
My grandfather’s home is home to wrens and gnats
And fiddler crabs — and periwinkle snails, dotting
The rough grass, a speckling of spiral shells.
I see his silhouette in the sinking sunset, see him
Standing tall by the water, watching the tide rise,
Realizing he is made of marsh and salt and sand.
I don’t know this island like I once did.
– Gwyneth Solomon
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