The Truth About Northern Lights — National Poetry Month

The Truth About Northern Lights

I’m not right. I’m interfered with
and bent as light. I tried to use the spots,
for months I tried with rings. 
Only now I’m thinking in cracks
that keep a modern light
lunged. I keep the porch light on
to burn you off in ghosted purls,
the licks of which filament me.
My Day-Glo tongue’s cutthroat.
Though I’m not clear,
I’m a sight whose star stares back:
it’s a new kind of dead;
it hides its death in my cinched
testicle. That bright burr makes me
unreal and itch. By the time
I’m something else, you’re making weather
with so-and-so. Drama tenants you;
it wades in queasy waves,
mottled to the marrow.

by Christine Hume
courtesy poets.org