St. John\'s Eve

St. John\'s Eve

St. John\'s Eve

In the blue light that let us see
my husband’s shirt buttons on bonfire night
and see our mink-coated dog
in the distance at half eleven at night,
a butterfly wings in from Borneo. It is the colour
of luminous blue fish in an aquarium.

It drinks our attention until the lavender hills,
the silver hound leaping for a tennis ball,
the girl throwing it, sixteen and beautiful,
become a film, a vacuumed surface.
We watch this creature visiting from space,
from heaven, from somewhere else, transfixed.

Go back, I want to say, You are in the wrong place.
It hovers for a while, pulsing blue light,
then flies off towards the coast.
We stare, robbed of a dimension. I am afraid.
I asked God what sacrifice would be enough
to keep us all together. I am talking with a stranger.

Naturalists write neater poems than lovers.
I would have promised anything.
All I observed beside the fire blossoming
below the house was a brown O on each wing.
I could taste the shining bone that would remain
a charred promise in the morning ashes.