A night card

 

For two little girls, far ahead of me in time:

How could you already be awake?

I have my own reasons, sitting in my bathrobe on my back patio tonight. The trees in your yard are black, black blotches linked by black branches and black trunks lit from below by the light on the brick apartment block across our way.

The air overhead is almost glowing white-black, warm and thick, a humid blanket with almost frozen starlight prickling through. The globe beneath my metal chair, spinning impossibly fast. But who could tell by looking?

At my near horizon, a constellation of yellow-white lights, points sparking now from yesterday’s sun.

The lightning bugs – glowing, curling afterimages in my mind. Did you send them to signal me? Bugs all around me, chirping and rasping, some pausing now and then as if for my answer.

It’s the middle of my night and already the sun shines in Siberia. From here I think that I can see your sparkling lights. Are they your eyes?