Challenging Poetry

stories in the sky

we climb out the window,
and forget the day—bracing our feet
against the slope of the roof
as we lay back to watch the sky explode.

the sun sets—
yellow to pink to red
purple to blue to starlight.
you lift our hands
you trace the stars, constellations
waved into existence with your hand
and my breath,
as I tell their stories again,
heroes and monsters
immortalized in the sky.

and then, fireworks.
new stars appear—flying, falling,
while we hold hands and gasp
until the show ends in fiery fountain.
smoke lingers—and I lift our hands
and trace new smoke lines,
new constellations—
and we hold hands,
and whisper their stories,
new landscapes, new characters,
new dreaming.

the show over,
we stand on gritty shingles
and climb in through the window
back into reality.

I did this once--watched fireworks from the roof. Actually, when I thought about writing about the night, I immediately thought about those apps that people use to find constellations (point your phone, and find anywhere around the sky--even the sky on the other side of the world. I've gone star gazing with people who just watch it through their phones--but when I started writing, it went here instead.