Celestial gears spark overhead
I feel light: my ribcage
vaults with each streak.
In the campground amphitheater
we tease our bodies along a narrow bench
marvel toward the unleashed blue
I’ve never imagined heavens like this.
Taking turns, we hold each other breasts to spine
breath brushing visible, count
two hundred sixty-seven shooting stars of the Perseids.
Your inconvenient toes numb up. So we speed back
to our newly-up tent, plunge giggling
into the same down sack
shiver into each other’s warmth.
–
Julie Ebin is a queer human whose work explores sensuality, finding stillness in nature, and motherhood. Ebin is a member of the Poem Works Boston community. In her earlier years she studied with C.D. Wright and Gale Nelson. Her work has most recently appeared in Solstice, Touch: The Journal of Healing, and Off the Coast. A co-founder of the former experimental collaborative writing group v.e.r.b.a.t.i.m., Ebin lives in Arlington, Massachusetts with one child and zero cats.
© 2025, Julie Ebin
Halfway Down the Stairs 