DARK STAR
I had not expected, mid-life,
that already my shining years
would be behind me, traded
for more essential things:
what it means
to have patience,
to wage a war,
how to endure.
I remember clearer now:
the smooth dunes,
bare shoulders,
my body feeling somehow
less bound, belonging
to me. You came out
of the sea—salt on skin.
In a particular way,
your face opened
beneath the midday sky.
Those early days I miss
when the light in your eye
hadn’t dimmed—before
you closed to me, some magic
you never spoke of
dissipating.
Yet we are here, still,
silvering at our temples and
saturated with all
we’ve lived, dark star
on my horizon.
c. B. L. Bruce
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Emerge Literary Journal is a journal of online poetry and prose dedicated to emerging writers and their words now in their ninth year of publication.
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