Sonnet: Edward White

In dreams I float like Edward White
who died in fire, but only after
he had lost himself in free fall.
Get back inside, they had to tell him.
He drifted at the end of an umbilicus,
his eyes enchanted by the blackest
shadows, the purest specks for stars,
and the awe of blue and swirls of clouds
from the round place that used to be
his home. Get back inside, they say,
but I drift in my dream above
their voices, filled with the blue
and swirling clouds. And in a sudden
burst, too near the sun, I flame.

Published in Piedmont Literary Review Summer 1987