Waiting for the Borealis

You will be the amber and green lights tonight
the night before Mother’s Day,
the show in the anthracite sky
confirming you endure.

Atomic particles of you will crash
into the atmosphere at impossible speed,
then rebound into an embrace of
sparkling arcs and dancing ribbons.

Mother, tonight I am Earthbound,
fetal in my blue plastic lawn chair,
swaddled in fleece,
small cold hands curled
around a glass of wine,
whispering prayers
the waiting hours will pass quickly
and the heavens remain cloudless
for your visit.

Susan Cossette lives and writes in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Author of Peggy Sue Messed Up, she is a recipient of the University of Connecticut’s Wallace Stevens Poetry Prize. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, The New York Quarterly, ONE ART, As it Ought to Be, Anti-Heroin Chic, The Amethyst Review, Crow & Cross Keys, Loch Raven Review, and in the anthologies Fast Fallen Women (Woodhall Press) and Tuesdays at Curley’s (Yuganta Press).