The Fault of an Absent Moon

Kristen Lenea Ryberg, from Catalogue of Missing

Dad and me 2010

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The Fault of an Absent Moon
                             -In Norse mythology Odin can visit Hel and return alive.             

We circled around him all week
on our last trip, to be with him, by the sea. 
We all witnessed a comet zip-race 
through black sky to a vanishing point,
trace, a new constellation to look up to,
follow him by, our Odin, among his fallen stars.

We circled around him all week.
Evenings, passed bottles and cigarettes
beside a sizzle-spark bonfire
one of us, so drunk—lost their pants,
sitting in the dark waves.

The fusion of togetherness
          ignited amygdala’s kindling
                                          blew across the beach 
each gritty grain of sand
         a crazy making rain—hitting skin
 exciting neurons,

everything unsaid or heard too often 
shouted—out of our mouths
echoed toward the deck.

The reverb, sounded, like a fight or a party or a death.
He sat on deck, dry and smokeless, listening to his progeny,
beached, their sonar out of whack.

I always appreciate a little poetry fuel:)