DEDICATION
Kira Henehan
The girls come glittery and wonderful with drink. Down at the planetarium it has dawned already and it is not quiet here. Clanging scrapshot of constellating bodies, who you people are: someone else’s guess. The clock behind the cup and what it says could be close, or your painted-shut door determined to be green beneath its color. A slow-circled sipping shaves edges from nightfall’s jagged orchestration (mimicry privileged, we decry the outside all its toothy misspent space), a slow careen, horizon’s lilt. Just come, come here they say from their rings and then spiral off into the shapes smoke makes blown sideways through teeth. After the fact we are free to feel sorry. While all the music plays in the background, all one might not need to hear (all the while murmurs from paper-bag booksleeves) resounds. Who will the wave break. Whose will the wave breaks will say how to go hence from here. The orbits ray the shock of ships. While we remain silent in a bravery fine as disembarking: top-hats, feathers, a subtle string of pearls. Bravo. Between the ceiling shadows and his arm she finds a triangle. The point sharpens to a prick with her squint; hey, we all have a touch of the sadist. They could either of them flick the switch, watch the centipede up the wall, etc. We all live dangerous distances from our mothers. Before the flurry, they polished the planets and then (and then) forced entry into funereal song. The girls stipple over marble, hair yellow with winter. There are the two seasons of night and day and the way the blankets lay is no indication. A phrase of whistlers darts through the blue room, interrupting the interstellar shockwave. So the recording skips, so balanced on badlystacked boxes, teetering, so he is asked to be more unusual now than usual. The swart of him all mauve and bruise about the overeyes. She can see around his head the burning, fiercely, and finally the scratch is righted and finally he’s crested in ash—a figure blown easily into something swept. The interstice almost unbroken but for rise of the crowd’s jeremiad, competing with the careful tune of the dark. We can rest in the center of the sun. The planets limp their tired orbit, ransacked piñatas maple-cane tapped. Security overlooks a lot these days. They step suited blue and sky-eyed over rubber gumball spill, styrofoam peanuts, livid and empty glasses in the hands not holstered. The marauding guests circle a girl below Saturn, aligning the rings to her crown. Haloed now sober, now haloed head unbidden reels, the eyes neither quarrel nor bronze and spot in on themselves. We reflect there, almost jeweled now, almost ruby or blackened, almost still but for punch-stained lip, gratis, a rising below.