Lucien Meadows

Arc

When I was twelve, my father drove me downtown to where
he worked welding steel, shrouded in Carhartts, while he dreamed
of big sky. Two hours later, we passed under a bridge and came up

in a dark square—though it was just after sunrise—and Father said,
“Get on the floor. Look down,” and I did. But soon my head rose
and I stared. Neon flashed. Giraffe-legged girls swayed down the walk,

and men cruised slowly in long black cars. A tall blonde in a magenta
jumpsuit and gold heels emerged from an alley. The other girls stepped
aside. Her eyes were painted silver; her lips more red than strawberries

in my grandmother’s garden. She came to the corner, where we waited
for the light, and our eyes met. My father noticed and cursed before
running the light. Soon, we arrived at his worksite, and I watched him,

behind my shield, melt steel with a flame hot enough to dissolve my bones.
Now, each night I roam that same boulevard. The metallic-blood scent
of sweat and powder burns my nose as I follow neon down to a man

more beautiful than any woman. And I walk with him, uptown, protecting
him from hope and lust and aching need, from the men with burning
eyes. The moon begins to fall; the smell of sage brushes us like feathers.

Under a streetlight, I see constellations of dark smudges yellowing
on his arms and calves. We need purification as much as we need home.
But when we wake, peeling back the darkness, we will sing of the crow

that watches over us as we suffer for love. Of the frost and the memory
of sunlight. Of the flowers I bring to him each night, white gardenias
that will blacken by the morning, everywhere they were touched.

On Passing through the Monongahela Forest at Night

fifty times more stars than I have seen
since I left the mountains fourteen long years
ago      my twin bed taken apart in father’s ford
one grey sock on the front porch    and I am
eight and crying    and father cannot     speak
we are losing this blue house    gold and violet
wildflowers    miles of open sky   so beautiful
so wild
now I am thrice the age I was then
shiny degree on the refrigerator    streetlights
at every corner    and one tree for each yard
sometimes I awake at three am    I cannot
find enough space to    breathe     and always
Monongahela mountains are calling me back
home
so I follow the stars    tonight they are
sprayed upon the sky    a swarm of bees singing
out my open mouth puncturing the omnipotent
absolute of night and leaving behind only pure
light taken from the ten million flowers
they have sucked    cherished    and now    lost