Finalist – 2026 James H. Nash Contest

Eclipse

by BRIAN COCHRAN

When the disappearance of light appeared, the streetlamps winked on, shedding their daytime disguises. The poem I was reading darkened, and unless you had it by heart, could no longer be seen.

Totality is like that. An unworldly singing in the streetlight-lit trees. The chthonic feel of the experience, its moment.

That morning, in the art museum, a woman had taken my hand, tenderly, and unnecessarily—after I’d asked her how to silence my phone. She cradled my hand that held the phone, and showed me.

That was in the temple room, with its stone walls, the famous sculpture of Guanyin, goddess, in Chinese Buddhism, of compassion. I could barely make out her face, the woman, I mean, not Guanyin.

Outside in the bright-lit gallery we each drew back, though barely perceptibly. She, at my age. Me, at her youth.

There are things we would all wish to experience.

Cars jammed the highways that day, as if speaking to this, streams of people in vehicles, driven to find their optimal eclipse, its totality, across a not-so-broad ribbon of land. Supply and demand can trace a yearning curve, sometimes right before our eyes.

If “see” inflects to “seeking”, maybe what I sought that day was the darkened, unreadable poem. Which I do not have by heart.

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BRIAN COCHRAN writes his poetry and essays in University City, Missouri. His work has appeared in Lana Turner, The Kenyon Review, VOLT, New American Writing, Denver Quarterly, Ninth Letter, and other journals. He has received fellowships, residencies, and grants from Millay Arts, Bread Loaf, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and MacDowell. His book Translation Zone won the 2022 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize.