In case you’ve been wondering, we
have sailed through skin and sky.
We reach up to where the two meet and cannot
feel the difference.
You hold a star in your hand, fingers cradling dust and
light, waiting for me to blow at the universe, waiting for me to create a new milky
way against the dark path we have traveled.
Instead I lift my other hand to
meet the first and cup the brilliance in my palms.
I don’t want to let go.
You
put your arms around my waist, tell me drop it all. You know it won’t last. Or
it will burn through my fingers the older it gets, the longer it sits and
invokes what we thought we would never say. There is a silence in the night
that we can’t wrap ourselves around and so we walk on, afraid to be still,
afraid we will disappear in the nothingness we have sewn from the sky.
Where
else can we go? We ask over and over as we fall down hills and run down
valleys. Past the old cabin where you loved me so deeply, rough against pine
floors and cobwebs, black widows watching us from clouded windows.
You held my
hand, fingers intertwined, you lifted me up and over the threshold and led me
over the beach, mussel shells crushed beneath our feet.
It all seemed so easy
then.
You whisper to me: Let go of the stars. Stop reaching so high.
All that
you need is right here around you in perfect constellations for your happiness.
