Every time she yanked the metal chain, a bulb
spat beams, a few stars of slow
and sluggish light, in the underworld
of a La-Z-Boy recliner. Like a princess
or tyrant she sat telescoping the deck
for possums, raccoons, any glowing orb.
It became apparent that no longer would a god
in all nativity’s lawns deprive her
of the troves of girlhood’s treasure, nor of the sky. What hung
in her outcry was betrothed to sun as rocks are
to lifelessness. Silent in gravitas
and gravity. Alas, all sick with science.
In her swifter years, she grew to grow conspiracies,
carried them through the choral rings found only among
stars and webcams. Like a moon she wandered
Alabama in earth’s nocturnal course. But her mind
now pitied to the ground, worked its humble celestials
down to be loosed among the roots.
Below the trinket rocks, below the gaze
of owls, she turned her heart to teething things: worms spun
in trees, beetles lipped in mud. And for a time, she slept
in thorns, throes, and colding moons, until
one Van Winklian morning, she woke in a rip of grass
where, lo and behold, there ballooned a flesh of sky.
Burlesque Press 