blinked tiny, high in the sky

while my cousin Michelle and I

camped out, in her back yard.

We lay on our backs in sleeping bags

on plastic-webbed chaise lounges,

faces open to the stars.

We both saw it.  It was real.

It seemed stationary above us.

Maybe 1958?

I would have been nine years old, Michelle ten.

The spot didn’t move as a plane would move.

It seemed too high up anyway.

I think we knew about Sputnik.

Was the blinking thing looking down at us?

We thought it was.

More likely it studied the Boeing plant

or Todd Shipyard or all the military bases

in Western Washington.

But we saw it.  It blinked.  It was red.

Up there.  In the sky.