Smoke Screen

The moon places her pale hand
over the sun's feverish forehead,
before stifling his sneeze.

She's always hovering,
smothering 
in her mothering.

The partial pathway appears,
stripes on a bumblebee
ready to sting.

And after decades of fretting,
bed-wetting,
and midnight decrees,

the moon takes it's best shot,
white-knuckled fist,
path of totality.

Black eye,
dilated pupil,
four minutes and twenty seconds of silence,
then two estranged celestial beings.

Cover Art: Tomas Easton

The National “Light Years”

Prompt: We challenge you to write a poem that centers around an encounter or relationship between two people (or things) that shouldn’t really have ever met – whether due to time, space, age, the differences in their nature, or for any other reason.

6 responses to “Smoke Screen”

Bartholomew Barker

Excellent take on the eclipse. Didn’t expect it to end with a black eye!

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1. K.F. Hartless
  
  Thanks, Bart. Does anybody every expect that one? Well, it doesn’t happen too often at least.
  
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Nick Allison

This is awesome, KF! And such a great and timely use of the prompt!

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1. K.F. Hartless
  
  Thank you, Nick. I appreciate your comments very much.
  
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johnlmalone

I enjoyed this, K, esp ‘the stripes on a bumblebee’ ; it’s interesting when many of the poets in your part of the world are writing on the same topic for once; it’s like what happened after Princess Diana’s death —

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K.F. Hartless

Oh my. Yes, well, thankfully there was a light at the end of this eclipse tunnel. It was a wonder to watch, and also my son’s birthday. It was fun to witness an almost total eclipse. It was about 80% here.

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