7

OBLIVION: STAR CHARTS

Waiting for them to return from their tempers
was the plan fanned out in the dark
and nobody seemed to object to instant
hobbies like staring at nothing until
their souls packed it in and split for the next life.
Or digging dead turtles from muck
near the road to leave them waiting watch
for something no one agreed
had even existed, this star light,
this light, this sky unlike a boot’s black heel.
And I had only just arrived
with the other world clinging to me
and rubbing off on everything I touched
or slept on or asked sincere questions about.
The mess annoyed everyone.
Even my apology shimmered
while they circled around me
to demand I help them do something
to be determined later.
And though I loved the tree
and the branch that held me sleeping
above the ground with ash
in drifts of falling effacement
and the river no one knew
to mourn by fire, lost as they were I left.