Pre-eclipse artifacts

I pause the horror movie to go to bed.
The gray tree frogs rolling dice in the dark.

Night enters the room, but without
stars, crickets, wind in the walnut trees,

all stuck to the window screen’s other side.
And for three days sleep would also

not come in. It stayed out there, hovering

moth, opportunity missed like a perseid.
Without that thing I have no memory of

I could barely remember myself. I blamed
my stress, my sins, my age. Blamed the photo

of the bodies floating behind the car
like points in a constellation for fear,

already so far beyond gravity.

But there is always something more
frightening than what you fear most.

Tomorrow the monster we killed as children
will have to be killed again. Without my eyeglasses,

in an hour where weapons of any kind are scarce,
the five toothbrushes on my bathroom sink

shone in the dark and brought me back.