A ghostly cloud frames a blank face with flashpoint eyes. I think of her while watching it drift across the endless dark.

Behind me a deer snorts a warning to leave which I ignore in favor of trying to determine the color of the universe.

Cats sit at my feet and perhaps wonder what my presence at such a late hour means to them. My admiration for their narcissism is a distraction from the answer to their question.

A yearly ritual once shared with a young woman now gone. A welcome to the Perseids. A slim connection to one whom, like the meteors, streaked through my life and blinked out too soon.

There’s a terrible beauty in these trails of fire. It’s as if they know of Ginger and realize their own insignificance compared to her smile.