Absolute Magnitude

by Amy Soricelli

It is odd that stars are called what they are in Oregon - the same as the Bronx.
The Big Dipper is alive over some roof; mine being brickish in cement wires/pigeons
tripping through the sky - and maybe theirs in cornflower blue, smooth yellows
and maybe there is shared sentiment like a chain store.
Perhaps it is the same everywhere.

The bright ones travel across your line of vision - squint if you must; its brighter
in clean air - how do the stars gather their strength to hang in there -
the seemingless motionless motion over the grainy buildings with their smokey puffs of
apartment air like gauze.
They struggle through the impossible expanse of blue -how do they not get bogged down in the details
between the grime; how do they manage the energy to appear each night...

Some dance under them.  They gather up long rows of arms - heads bowed passionately -
and sometimes in a circle in languages thick with accent-
telescopes get pulled out onto backyards by polo shirts - kids point up to them in summer camp
with grassy patches designed onto their white shorts;

the promise of love by the trillions blinking like eyes - it is never the deep Shakespeare love on bended knee
but rather the average lover commenting on train schedules - of being lost in a crowd.
The passing of love in seconds like the white between the stripes - the pauses in the sentences, the space
between the blinks...
that is the stars.
The dangling motion of the comma - stars can hang like that.
Stars punctuate the night -
finish your sentences for you.