Our Light Through These Lines

It’s more haunting to recall
Imperfectly the event
That never truly happened,

To feel the outline of it,
To be convinced memory
Only needs careful prodding

To remember it clearly,
But then slowly, so slowly,
Dawning terror and wonder—

You haven’t lost it; you aren’t
Misremembering the thing—
The event never happened.

It’s a frighteningly good
Reminder that forgetting
Is the heart of creation,

The core of thought. History
And astronomy were raised
On hymns to gaps and darkness.

But it’s not quite dark matter,
This hallucinated poem
That no one’s ever written.

This is the light that wasn’t,
The clear blue supernova
That flowed through canals on Mars.