Pat Jones

What They Know

by Benjamin Taylor Lally

A girl points up — she spies a star that moves.
This shooting star, in fact, is just a plane.
The boyfriend knows this, easily could prove
that she is wrong, but lets the myth remain.

Aboard the plane, a passenger points down
and tells his wife that in the lights below
he sees their house. She knows they’ve passed their town,
but looks and claims to see the house he shows.

Within the house, a boy waits for the phone
to ring. It’s nearly nine o’clock. She said
she’d call, but as he waits for her, alone,
she’s outside gazing at the stars instead.

The boyfriend walks ahead, and yet she knows
He cares for her more deeply than he shows.

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Benjamin Taylor Lally’s poetry has been published in The Formalist, ISPS, and Troubadour as well as a few smaller publications. His less serious work has appeared for four straight years in the finals of the Winning Writers “Wergle Flomp” competition, which he won in 2008. He has also given presentations on poetry at the University of Virginia and the City College of New York. He currently lives in Framingham, Massachusetts with his wife and daughter, and teaches English and Creative Writing at Burlington High School.