Meteor Shower

I was a space child. My mother woke me to see a shower of meteors. I was surprised by how early the dew set, by the wet legs of my baby beach chair—plastic weft of sea-foam green and coral. I, snug in the warp. Trans- fixed to nighttime. I felt 2 a.m. had some knowledge I didn’t. The grass was brown, but not. Night falling in all around me, but I could see clear down to the turn in the road. Everything replaced by an almost twin. I was not as cold as I had been. I looked up at the manifold debris, streaking. Making seams across the sky, before falling to wherever was next. Soundless. The dead grass poked up through my socks. But I didn’t move. I held my breath for a very long time. I held on to the blanket my mother brought me home in. That was when I wanted to see it all, passing before me.