Published in Orchards Poetry Journal

Night sky images

The new moon is firelight
on the runner
of a rocking chair.
Andromeda lounges
on a couch while
Cassiopeia reads
a novel, knees
drawn to her chin.
Orion sprawls,
hands behind head
and feet on the fender,
studded belt tight
over replete stomach.
The dogs growl
and twitch in their sleep.
The twins are in bed.


But it only takes focussing
on one star, shining
with science, to drag perception
down a shivering tunnel away
from familiar, from myth,
to horror of the unknowable.