They come once
every eight months:
freshman, sophomores,
seniors, preparing
for university.
Between periods
in the windowless basement
of the language department,
a constellation
of student bodies,
a collision of backpacks,
become a monumental event
in my sky.
A white boy as big
as the moon
stays faithful to his orbit toward
Latin class.
A Somali student's
shadow angles forward.
But on their strict ecliptic path
of punctuality,
the two freshman find
each other
in the uncertainty
of this space,
reach out into
an embrace
with a brief, "Hey man, how ya doin'?"
then slide toward their assigned destinations
from an elegant penumbra.
The bell rings, I close
my steel door behind the last student,
and all I want to do is ask if anyone
had seen the eclipse.
