by Emma Bennett
I’ve taken for granted a sky
dotted with stars like the feathers
on a hummingbird’s neck, iridescent
as scales. If the night is a massive body,
reclining on one side, I am a child,
post-nightmare, trying to climb
into her embrace. Oblivion
has always terrified me,
but how could so soft
a darkness be dangerous?
This night is pearled with clouds,
a clear cup full of smoke
that I savor and sip.
I’m constantly trying to become
the beauty I see before me.
I hold stars up to my lips
as if I could swallow them. Yet isn’t my musing
in the wrong direction? Contemplating
too much the reflection,
and not the heartbeat.
I’m tossing out wide nets
into this inky abyss and pulling in planets
that glimmer like fish.
I have enough stars
to burnish my ceiling. A child still,
crafting mobiles, batting
at shiny things. Darkness draws my eye
as much as light, the gleam
of green on a magpie’s wing.
The darkness folds like sheets,
moves like curtains
in a breeze, shifts like a sigh.
Suddenly I’m in a room with no ceiling,
pushing aside layers and layers of black
and blue. I walk a maze
of mirrors with the night endlessly reflected,
an ocean of rippling nebulae
and meteors darting like minnows.
If I had to disappear,
I could go gently into this.
Emma Bennett was born and raised in Houston, TX and has been writing poetry since she was far too young to write it properly. She attended an arts magnet high school for creative writing and is currently a junior at a Massachusetts college. Right now she’s preparing for her first full semester of online classes while trying to reread all the books she owns. In addition to writing, Emma enjoys drinking smokey teas, watching Studio Ghibli movies, and listening to French music (despite not understanding anything).
