From the Rooftop of the Life Sciences Building

we could view the night — time
lay out flat before us, all things
at once, like stars, and we

could understand design,
what brought us here,
a confluence like Pleiades,

and we, the seventh, the missing 
last. A planet
with three moons whirled

languidly, and a satellite
off which our voices bounced
arched in a silence

we could not hear to hear.
We watched with greater
clarity what we could see

without the telescoping
eye: 13 falling stars, the dying
of the light. Later,

coincidentally, the city
lights went out, and we
lit candles, our

little family of voices
wafting across the streets:
mother, father, son,

and felt ourselves a trinity,
all things at once, warm
and blessed with afterlight.