Light by Mary Ann Meade

Posted on July 30, 2019 by Bob McCranie

There, in the field, the light rising from the husks.
Fool’s gold her father whispers, the cat squinting up

from the grass, and she, a frail child, holding on
to the husks. Never mind her cough, the dust.

Never mind the words of her father, a cigarette
in his mouth, but unlit. For summer after summer,

she will keep the husks. The gold, she knows, is real.
Even now in the sudden rain, the north star adrift.