Copyright: 3quarks

Star Light, Star Bright

My sister says I go on and on about Miss Ingram,
says I must be in love with her, but I’m not. I just
like the way her dark hair hangs long, straight

down her back, the way she smells like lavender
when she comes to our desks to check our spelling.
If it wasn’t for her, I would never have known

about Scout, who had a daddy who loved her even
after her mama was dead. After school, I lie
in the forest, look up at the tall trees. I like the pine

smell, and it’s quiet so I can think. Somewhere close,
a cricket chirps fast. They’re supposed to be good luck.
I could use some good luck. My watch doesn’t have

a second hand, so I can’t count the number of chirps
in 14 seconds, and add 40, like Miss Ingram taught us
to calculate the temperature, but it feels like about 85

out here today. My teacher knows a lot about nature,
like about how insects are cold-blooded, so they move
faster when it’s hot. The cricket chirps are slowing down.

Now, the sun is lower in the sky. Between tree trunks,
I peek toward the west; I can see how the clouds are
all pinky orange. Soon they’ll be dark purple.

I see Venus, the evening star, which Miss I. says
is really a planet. I hope that cricket’s song attracts
him a mate. It’s lonely living in these parts.

About This Poem:

• This poem first appeared in Petrichor Machine #6 in 2016. I wrote it based on a Stephen Dunn prompt (like five of my previous poems, including last week’s).The only requirement I remember was that it had to include an insect. If by any chance, any of you have read or written a poem to this prompt, I would love to see it.

• The fact that I ended up writing this in a child’s voice surprised me, and once I found that voice, the poem more or less wrote itself.

• Although it’s set in the summer, it’s really a winter solstice poem, with a tiny light shining in the midst of a somber mood.