image by Casey Barber

Under the luminous moon 
of the equinox, I travel this 
quiet New England byway.
Behind me, a small possum sits 
in a twist of brush and bramble.

She’s praising Something 
– herself, fate, or God -
for running the gauntlet 
of my tires; how she did it
is a question for minds 
bigger than hers or mine.

Yet I’ve told her story out of turn:
First were frantic breaths
and heaving tremors
as she recalled her maze of terror:
the swirling black teeth,
the cold asphalt on her pads, 
the shocking graze of metal against
her coarse coat.
.
It's a shame that possums 
are solitary animals.  
No one was there, watching
wide-eyed and breathless;
No one was there, applauding
the blind luck and dumb moves 
that got her to the other side.

I drive on.  
North of me, at the end of another road,
a dark sentinel gazes into blackness;
where horizon meets the sea,
Cadillac Mountain waits for the sun.

I return.
It's pre-dawn, fourth of July; 
you slumber in your sleeping bag 
as I pass under festive banners 
on my way to the trail.

I stumble up the mountain
to wait for the sunrise, my soul
bounding and rebounding 
against your world’s low atmosphere.

I arrive in the final opaque moments;
others are here too:
in pairs in groups in close proximity.
We wait, and I wrap my arms  
around myself.  

There was nothing I could do
to stop that certain light; 
the urge to bolt seized like a spasm, 
and I tumbled across, blind and careless, 
careening into coldness, 
into tangle, into truth.

No one saw me when I crossed over;
the clapping I heard was not for me, 
but for the first rind of light that sent
shimmers across the waters. 

I sat, far into the new day, 
breathing the air 
and blinking at the light.  

That night, 
while everyone watched fireworks, 
I embraced Independence Day.