Hereafter
By Kevin Young
Once, in winter, I was blessed
by lightning, the plane
sudden struck—the boom
of it, the cabin lit up
& then the air
made metal
in my mouth. It’s true,
you can look it up—
we had circled like hell,
_____
trying to land
a good while—
once even descended
through clouds of snow,
earthbound, only
to rise again
the last moment
when a plane already
sat there, blinking,
_____
on our white runway.
Exiled back
to the sky, we orbited
the airport untethered
& impatient.
So when lightning threaded
us through, we all knew—
wrong it turns out,
yet one day
_____
true enough, perhaps soon—
we’d be done.
You should know
that after you ready
to meet the far,
stony shore, it is not hope
but the strange fire
of forgiveness
that flares & fights
_____
there—not wanting
to go, hoping only
you’d said so
long to all you know—
to the elms
who also know what it means
to be told you’d die
& survive.
In that emptied, electric air
_____
some wept. Others asked
to help, or for help,
began to act
as if it was merely static
that snagged
us aloft. How long
did we linger
up there, in thunder?
Thinking mostly of all
_____
I loved, of what
I’d never write.
Mirror
of my mind. Once we kissed
the earth again, firetrucks
ushered us
through the open gates
where the five o’clock news
asked what I’d seen
_____
& the woman I loved, picking me up,
talked a blue streak till she heard
the between we’d been.
Quiet then, we fetched
my luggage orbiting
the conveyor belt, unspooling
its rosary. We drove
home in snow deep
as silence. This little
_____
living light. Even now
how to name
just how bright the sky
looked that night & most
the next day?
Hard to believe
one instant
you could be beyond
the earth’s reach—
_____
the next, marveling
at our singed,
wounded wings.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2025)