That swarm of comet dust pelts the windshield
atmosphere, Earth driving through the asphalt
black of space at sixty seven thousand miles an hour,
rushing to escape the course of gravity. At that speed,
the Perseids light up the sky as August fireflies
dripping their luciferin on invisible Pyrex air
that the heat of their bodies cannot crack,
only wipe the night with its yellow-green glow
till dawn scrapes the sky like a knife and washes
the slipstream glass with its own streaks of yellow.