Jane Zwart

Artificial Light

In light, color is a function of kerning: the ruby meander;
the purple switchback, rounded vertices slaloming dimes.

Harder to chart the degree of light’s guile--excepting
unimpeachable suns. Take the motes that ride bright air

on earth and chalk the moon: how do we rate regolith
relative to railroad worms, to standard embers, to the milk 

of incandescent algae the surf can’t stir into the sea?
Nevermind the pretenders at the spectrum’s far end, 

the tanning beds and flameless candles, oily fluorophores
burning inside ravers’ haloes and Halloween bangles. 

How artificial is the light from a bulb that must ease itself,
humming, into radiance? How artificial the blitz 

inside the tubes that school janitors flick on, setting off
domino lightning, rituals of fluorescent paroxysm?

Two weeks before his last birthday, my brother wasted
a roll of film, setting off blasting caps in a flash cube, 

outshining the explosions in the sky. He took pictures
of night scuffed by lux, but which flares were more false: 

the zirconium that burst in a crystal box or the fireworks?
We named them after each other as they chandeliered.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Jane Zwart teaches at Calvin University, where she also co-directs the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have previously appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares and TriQuarterly, as well as other journals and magazines.