Rachel Toulouse

Two days past Independence Day
Electric fan whirs the sand
From my eyes

Sleepless
The damp sheet clinging
To my limbs
In ridges that rise
And falling into the hollows
The spaces between the ribs
The sinking bowl of the belly exhaling--
Absence

Finding faces and animal shapes
In the wood of the ceiling
Flames

I dream of aurora borealis
Night sky clearings
And finding that the marsh
Where the tadpoles were
Had slipped through cracks in dry mud
Will there be time enough?

The house hangs
With the sadness
Of people gone to bed early all their lives
And the only sound
Is the clink clink
Of small green bugs
Against the lampshade
As they dive and dive
For the light.