Noctilucent

The poems in Noctilucent begin where light exists or is created in darkness a paradox. But this is not a 'dark / light' of metaphor but of the real and of relationship where algae illumines the deep sea the light of dead stars reach us from deep space and night is a doorway an entrance into the interior-of self other cosmos. Melissa Buckheit bridges human experience-personal historical social-into this space where the very thing which is invisible or hidden must be spoken. There is no Truth-but truths identity eros suffering loss gleam along the interstices of the lyric as meaning embedded in a strange and musical syntax. We are surprised as if by a pale-white fragrant Datura blooming unforgivingly in the dark of night by her intimacy and electric force. In Noctilucent the beloved is every human body a decaying salmon or the lilts of a lover's voice-our human devotion to memory.