aurora borealis, three months after not killing myself

            I arrive on the cusp. As the heat unthreads, as ropes of gold melt the leaves. Berries dampen & then swell. Reindeer scatter around my rental Volkswagen, the fur on their antlers gleaming & glutted. It’s a burnished season. I go into the forest for a long time.
                        I had a dream I came north & then I did.
            I hike fells, I swelter in the cold. I ignore my phone, I grapple eschew. My throat spurts cloudjuice, a black birch thorn skims the flesh of my thumb. I’m not asking why I’m here. My mouth runs up the stone surface of the season. I find a deserted fire pit, still smouldering. The sign tells me this is the best viewing point in the territory. A bluethroat wefts the twilight. I go to the lake’s border and stop.
                        I hold a splintered vision of swollen lungs, wet hair.
            Mist deepens by the shore. Night anchors, crystal coruscations canopy the darkness forever. Stardrops hurtle distance, crown my hair. They don’t really, but that’s what I believe for a moment, with my head between my knees. When I leave, a ring of black water will pebble my footsteps. I’m slickened with waiting.
                        Save me beauty, I think.
            It’s then the night buckles, the world erupting titanic green, hammering out the dark. All of it shimmers & swirls like a trap. It’s not sacred, nothing is, but I still almost forget myself. Spiracles of haunted violet, my mouth concretes silence. Blue, braiding the burning gulch symmetrical. Silver shadows flare, become lapis, emerald, amethyst.
            Everything here is a bright breach in recurrence.
                        I never dreamt of this. It won’t linger, but the memory is now.
            My head comes up. I surface chimerical.
                        All the dark iridesces, all the trees awake.