Dreams

Leah Cashin / 12 (BARE staff)

Stars lay spread out

in the night sky. They hang

there, a work of art;

they live.

They are bright shards of glass

that pierce through dark

depths. He dreams of space —

a black pit, a place to search

and a place to find

as he sits

in the small bed.

How did we get here? Why are we here?

He asks out loud with no one

to hear him but the moon.

He looks to the face of John Glenn,

taped to his wall. If he can

then I can — so I will.

His thoughts are as plain as that;

his goals are as clear as that.

He grasps at them, picks at them like straws.

Ten years pass.

He is not in space,

he is not filled with awe,

he does not gaze out at the

stars from up there, high in the sky.

But he is still the boy that dreamt.