A Sense of Constellations

the evening began on a shelf
(a bookend cage, really)
a hardback from last garage sale
to never consider again
with its dust-laden title,
with its coffee stain script.

but chapters of breaths (in time) accumulate,
form Nimbus ideas
that will green the grass and puddle the streets
for yellow boots and almost sleep
until synapses crack the sky
and we can read (finally) by splintered dusk.

one translator, one cartographer
observing the transient pride of fireflies,
inhaling the nuances of peering stardust
to make lunar lexis into something tangible,
to capture celestial directions
for the day (far from now) we may need them.

“teach me to speak”
words fall soft and forgiving
making skeleton keys of taste buds.
the not-so-darkness has a voice
(the churning sea of Neptune/ the craving eyes of Venus)
to be found in brink-of-night lips

“teach me to find”
Apollo fingers depart the edge of here-on-earth eyes
tracing the scenic course from now to someday, maybe-
a zodiac path bent on telling old stories,
on making poems of our bodies,
on embellishing the truth about night.