Astro Turf

This is a syllabic poem (meaning there is a set pattern of syllables per line) that I did for my poetry class. It came from looking up at the night sky and feeling a strange pang of homesickness.

The night air tossed our

thoughts around us in clouds:

newly hatched insects, craving nutrients,

that settled on our skin.

 

You and I curled up

in the prequel to a

thunderstorm, drinking in the snapping heat -

as if it were water.

The storm moved in close,      

its breath brushed against us,

but we just shivered, chanting nervously:

it will not find us here.

 

We lost ourselves in

lurid images and

the cloying touch of a humid midnight,

and passed the hours by

 

connecting freckles

on our skin like star charts,

plotting out galaxies on our bodies -

our heavenly bodies.

 

Staring up into

the ancient universe,

we knew (the same way we knew how to breathe)

this was the only way

 

we could get back home. 

Author's Note

I originally had the third stanza further down in the poem, between stanzas 5 and 6. What do you think of its placement? My professor suggested I move it up so that it doesn't interrupt the flow of the last half of the poem, but I'm still not sure.

Thoughts and feedback would be greatly appreciated!