Meteor

And this is how everything vanishes,
how everything that vanishes begins,
the hinged moment looking forwards and back.

Like that night when we sat with the back door open,
the summer distilled to the scent of jasmine, 
the scrape of cutlery, the chink of glass.
Somewhere, an animal stirred in the hedgerow.
Clothes held our bodies as a mouth might a kiss.

Then the meteor brought us like a rising wave
to our feet: a stripped atom, trapping electrons 
to excite the darkness with its violet light.

I remember how it disturbed the heavens,
how I didn’t have the words to tell it,
the bright surge of its travelling
as it burned against the air to leave no trace.