Night is a cloudless canopy,
a shy moon hesitating above the peak.
Your phone light spills white on the cow path,
a radiant brink ahead
Swaying with purple needlegrass,
your black cast wrapped around your hobbling foot.
The chirpy doctor told you “four weeks”
until you could don your half-torn leather glove.
“What about my plan?” you asked,
beating balls, sweating your way to Division One.
Now, you’re an alien, wobbling up a foreign hill,
not chasing the silver golf ball, not chasing anything.
You’re without your coconut sunscreen, your strawberry electrolytes,
without your golf bag heavy around your shoulders—
Who are you?
You stand on the rocky outcropping,
hovering above the clover-green horizon,
where pink watercolor is smeared below a bright balloon.
The poppied terrain ahead is dotted with clusters of
rhinestone lights tucked into the kneaded hills.
You imagine the galaxy beyond, clusters of colorful marbles,
balls of sparking energy circling and colliding, each farther than the last—
The dark indifferent closet expands to infinity, ripping through the void—
and you briefly fear the crushing grip of the cosmos.
But maybe someone out there is looking back,
like you, feeling significantly insignificant,
a speck in the universe, wandering on a floating rock.
But it’s not all lost. It’s your duty to navigate the fairway ahead
and find your place among the stars.
Nathan Lee lives in San Ramon, California and is currently attending Dougherty Valley High School.