There’s a neon palm tree
standing uphill
from where I emerged,
half-awake,
a moth brushing off a synthetic chrysalis
draped in imaginary green and white.
It’s just another fixture,
gaudy and bright in the then-discovered early morning.
The dull red of sunrise
sits atop the mountains,
the kind of color that reminds me of midnight,
of times not meant to be seen–
Geese out on the pond,
afraid of my heart in the dark,
my shoes full of dew.
I don’t remember looking up
which is why the stars surprise me, still flickering
in the pale gray sky–
the brightness of a planet,
still and steady
catches the corner of my eye,
like the palm tree, like me,
a satellite masquerading
as a star.
Norah Brady is a fifteen-year-old wanna-be poet, author, and actor. She’s most at home anywhere she can write, preferably with two cats and quite a few books. You can find her work in Rookie magazine, Stone Soup, and Write the World’s 2017 collection: Young Voices Across the Globe.