The Lost Boys
…for she thought that she
had seen him before in the faces
of many women who have no children. ~ J.M. Barrie
I peered darkly
into the night’s lens
where the soft searing skin
of newborn galaxies
stretch out like a yawning
crocodile jaw
breathing
black holes of borrowed
energy from a
cosmic core
that contained me
and then didn’t
me and you –
and then didn’t
I peered down the barrel
of the universe
only to travel towards
myself marigold
metamorphosis fissured
face-to-face with my own
celestial singularity expanding
clock kernel core
wayward waning
like a triple moon
But when we were
one space I
saw the universe
as a shadow at our feet
to collect crease the blankets
of energy roll them up
and place them in
a pram of my own plans.
Instead, I found it
Peter Panning
towards its own end,
and you –
ticking towards yours.
Audrey Towns, a literature and composition instructor in the heart of Fort Worth, Texas, dismantles the nature/culture binary in her prose and verse. New materialism is her muse, landscapes her canvas, and the connection between the human and nonhuman her essence. She has published in several places, including The Stone Poetry Quarterly, (forthcoming) Eunoia Review, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, and The Ulu Review.
Insta: @Audrey_Haferkamp_Towns
