PALMETTO POEM: A Paltry Light

By Danielle DeTiberus, special to Charleston Currents

What if the sunset last night—the waves
impossibly pink and the sand’s sheen
a soft mirror to the darkening

lavender sky— belonged to me
so that I could give it all to you?
What if I could take a page, colder

than snow, and fill it with the ocean’s
blue light? Make it glint like a million
little wishes tossed into some foreign

God’s fountain. Make you swear that
if you just tilt your head to the left
you might hear the wind angling

against your ear. Would you stay
with me forever then? In bed,
in the car, in the diner booth with two

coffee cups and our own shiny jukebox
playing Nina Simone on repeat. What if
my only superpower was making

really good sandwiches and this poem
failed? Would you still promise to love me
back into myself when I’m lost? When

nothing belongs to me but you. Behind us,
the sun makes a show of its leaving. A bright
drunk who has to be dragged away, singing

into obscurity. That’s all I want to give you:
a little color where there was none. Just
a flash and then suddenly— stars.

Danielle DeTiberus teaches creative writing at the Charleston School of the Arts. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2015, Arts & Letters, Mead, Rattle, The Southeast Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere. You can read more about her work at www.danielledetiberus.com.

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