Friends Post Photos of the Sky

Morning shots marbled copper
and indigo, evening pearled

silver and mauve, thunder
storms, forked

lightning, the moon
in all its moods—musk

melon, milk-faced,
slightly askew. Years

ago, shoving a stroller
through snow, grocery

and diaper bags slung
over my shoulder—I looked up

as if from under water
at the sky’s white-capped

waves, wondering if
there was a surface above

where I could breathe. Yesterday,
feeling sad, a friend

said, Go outside
and look at the stars. So

I stepped into the silence, staring
up at lights shining

with the heat of a million
unanswered prayers.

 

 

Silver Alert

 

Someone’s mother
or father wandered

off as Daddy once
shuffled down a sidewalk

in his slippers and PJs, as Mother
drove after her license

expired and couldn’t find
her way back. Morning light

strikes chrome
on the car ahead; silver, from specks

of quartz in asphalt, glitters. Half
way across the Cape Fear

River Bridge, I’m grateful I don’t
have to answer another

call about escapes, falls, or trips
to the ER. They’re missing, but

not lost, remembered
and at rest.

 

 

 

 

 

Beth Copeland’s book Transcendental Telemarketer received the runner-up award in the North Carolina Poetry Council’s 2013 Oscar Arnold Young Award for best poetry book by a North Carolinian. Her book Traveling through Glass received the 1999 Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Award. Copeland teaches English at Methodist University.