Dear Baby Star, Dear Little Astronaut,
Night's asterism in the southeast
sky: bluish Vega, Altair, Deneb,
a ghosty band of Milky Way (our
own galaxy!) smack through the summer
triangle’s middle—I walk loud with
ghosts. The trees breathe crows
that collect in roosts and murders.
The ventriloquy of waves. In my head
I am always trying to move the moon
with soft scold swears & jetty happy
desecrations. Another asteroid crashes
into Jupiter causing a hole the size of Earth.
Words keep me—parade me through
Jupiter’s debris. What will happen now
Dear Baby Star, Dear Little Astronaut, now
that backwards orbiting planets have
been discovered? I build
cairns of hope from collected words
and lake stones. Morning, a cicada drops
from the purple chokecherry. I leave
it where it lands, square on my right
shoulder, my own strange-
dark-winged-lopsided epaulet.
—Susan Firer, Milwaukee
