an asterism *** 

              a sentence is a killing thing,

your studio door plaque 

                                         : unavoidable anywhere 

                 in the kitchen I sat, scoured, or ate.

                        *

 a war is not the war till something

            I think is mine goes 

       mouth to mouth with pavement,

  toothless as the luna moth in June.

                            *

I know why it kisses the porch bulb

    Eric’s three-year-old piped, pointer finger angled

above our heads: It’s in LOVE with the light

—and of course no one laughed because she’d

         nailed it, just as the two bottom stars of the Dipper’s bowl 

             rose above our juniper sedge for the last time that year.

                          *

                                              It’s not a constellation, you know

                                              you said to none of us

                                              It’s an asterism

                                              in a tone like autumn 

                                              inseminating the hush

           —a killing thing, indeed.

—Wailing and Gnashing, November 2025