S.T.A.R.S.

Gavin Bradley

Uncounted, uncountable, they pass above. 
Up in the air, and gasping for it.

An orchestral accompaniment—rotary blade staccato,
like crickets in a southern prairie choir,
play them off with what Bing Crosby would have called
a slam-bang finish.

At home, my mother taught me to put two pink hands together
when an ambulance went past silently,
Buster Keaton lights flashing red-blue-red-blue-red-blue;
miming the way for the faithful departed.

Here, though, there aren’t enough palms. There aren’t enough knees. 
There aren’t enough holy saints or guilty Catholics or rosaries
or mothers or impressionable sons to listen.

Just God, overworked—tired of miracles and sheep,
doing arithmetic with prayers to help him nod off.
I wish that I could do the same.

Uncounted, uncountable, they pass above. 

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Gavin Bradley is an Irish writer from Belfast, currently living in Edmonton, on Treaty 6 territory. Some of his work can be found in The Irish Times, The North, Best New British and Irish Poets, and Glass Buffalo. In 2020 he won the inaugural Edmonton Poetry Festival Prize for Poetry and his first collection of poetry is upcoming in 2022 from University of Alberta Press.

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