then i saw a wonder

Not sure what I was thinking when the split

in the sky grew larger Drinking something with mint

and feeling the creeping unease of an unsolicited

visitation Missing link Well hell what’s one more shadow

in a house of angles One more tree felled

in a circle of felled trees stretching as far

as the bird can see Something out of the sky that wants

too much A shockwave that broke windows

hundreds of miles away I want you to become

a person who crawls under barbed wire

to unearth the extraterrestrial rock to refuse to

conform to the expectations of some wider

institution When I was on the ground I pressed

my head down fearing rocks would smash us Watching

flashes in the sky small thunderstrikes whose origin remains

unknown The night I think I knew we were out

eating macaroni and cheese and looking at the

sky across which a perfect string of satellites

proceeded A river in Siberia Something out of the sky beyond

us It became mighty bright how can I say this as if there was

a second sun I want for you nothing

more than to be the blast that draws its impossible radius

across the land to freeze suspended dust particles inside my

atmosphere until they glow at night frostbite

removing any flesh unnecessary to the soul I want

for you to frighten and amaze Something out of the sky

beyond me a bird or just a stubborn fragile

creature persisting beyond their origin

*italicized text taken from first-person accounts of the Tunguska event, a 12-megaton explosion that occurred in eastern Siberia in 1908.

elizabeth cantwell