EVERYONE HAS A RELATIONSHIP TO STARS—Orion, Lyra, oh Cygnus the swan, or has sat in dark dazzled by light of bright burning Marilyn, tears tracing constellation on cheeks. Mother star shooting up, bright white imagination. Light of her living in my gaze years dead. Mother everybody uses, everybody a wound that shape. Who hasn't sat in stairwell crying mother mother. Dead stars caught on screen, forever faces shining. Word we use holding other words, inaccessible, distant, desired, words concealing meaning, or wavering it, bright in night sky not illuminating anything, not maternal like moon but mothers still, mother of this thought & that, of feeling, of tingling nerves weeping we might call enduring—
This poem originally featured in SOFTBLOW. Cover photograph by Darla Mottram.