Kate Bush Appears on Night Flight, 1981

Midnight in the forbidden living room,

past my parents’ bedroom, closing doors quietly

behind me, unknowingly opening a path 

from which I will never veer, even later

when I become older, succumb to any zeitgeist.

I turn on the TV and she somersaults

across the screen, startling the rolling vertical hold

into stillness, her siren voice makes me fumble

in the dark for volume control, I put my hand

against the screen, feel the static in my fingertips,

a transference of energy in 1981 that delineates

past and present, a woman who calls herself Cathy,

wants to come in through the window.

But she wasn’t coming through, I was going in,

my link to her a series of hot boxes where she

would appear without warning over decades

like the Virgin, her songs a catechism, her name

a prayer I chanted at the backs of retreating lovers,

divorcing parents and death, and even in her absence,

the music never faltered like I did,

songs willing pills back into bottles.

Twenty-seven years ago I put on my armor,

never had a ring put on my finger, blew kisses

across the ocean, for inspiration and strength,

for God to keep her even when he wasn’t keeping me,

and even now, when I am driving or dancing,

walking in Los Angeles or London, the song remains
the same, her name an utterance: Kate, Kate, Kate.

This poem appears in the HomeGround Anthology, 1982-2012 and Assaracus literary magazine. Republished here to mark the occasion of Kate Bush announcing her first live concerts in 35 years. And, yes, I got a ticket.