Imagining the stars you found after the storm

by Dennis Etzel Jr.

You drifted with lightning clouds last night
when I was asleep. I was in the storm
of a nightmare

that led me around trees to coyote bones
and a cemetery of old settlers
who could not travel further.

You never accept being stuck, a fact I love
waking to. At the still of sunrise, you return
with the story

of how, after the rain, you lanterned
the forest to find a clearing for me, the trail
in the sky I could rely on for rest —