Light Journeys

By Melissa Knox Evans

From conversations with Dr. Pippa Cole

before you leave Da, close
your eyes and stay                     
the phases                                 
rush your lids shut                      caroming
against the ricochets                   eight-minute waves born
of light                                       of random walks
sparked millions of                      nights
years                                          dawns
before you crawled                     reaching for fresh moss
through sharp grasses           shedding next to woodruff creeping
long before you broke us            into bloom under oak trees
our weans flitting                         branching widely then
as late sun dulls                           coarsening into dusk       

tonight your broad fingers           bring comfort
less thick than before                  my son murmurs his feet
shift                                           rubbing together
like cricket legs                           as he slips into sleep
humming                                          
beneath my pied hand                  toes fluttering                                                                
their twitches flicking                        
moon-dimness                             like wraiths
into the bowl of my eye
and our breath so still               so gently calm
I feel we might hear
the photons land

that time slows, Da—
your blaze
searing up to the stars

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Melissa Knox Evans lives in Oxford, UK. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in New York Quarterly, The Closed Eye Open, Cathexis Northwest Press, Inklette Magazine, The Banyan Review, Hare’s Paw Journal, Barzakh Magazine, and elsewhere. She is editor of science and arts publication, Seisma Magazine.