New Poetry by Kyle Hanton: “Deployment, 2017”

The stars in the North Atlantic hide
for months behind an eternal dusk sun.
I can’t take comfort that we see the same stars
if I can’t see them at all; time passes
even though we’ve been apart for months
and the calendar says the days do, too.
Without the stars flickering or the hint
of clouds gliding through moonlight, I can’t tell.

I left Norfolk months ago and yesterday;
tomorrow, the next day, or ten years from now,
I’ll be home, greeted like Odysseus by Eumaeus:
a king returns to Ithaca and strings his bow.