Every New England child alive &
enrolled in May 1993 has the same
solar eclipse scorched into her retina:

They line us up on the blacktop,
under the basketball hoop, hand out
pinhole viewers cut from cereal boxes

& say don't look. Don't look.
Now. Look now. Now stop.
And of course my whole science class

keeps staring, we who have watched
anoles lose one tail and grow another,
who have learned to diagram & spell

endoplasmic reticulum. I squint
through cardboard emblazoned
with the Froot Loops toucan.

No ring of fire so much as a fist,
hovering in front of a bare light bulb.
That must be the hand of God, I think.

I can't place His forearm. Class,
inside now. Could the punch
be coming straight at us?