for Jean

As a child
looking at all of those stars in the violet night
thinking it must have been love
that cast their light
so we could look back millions of years
into that past
of charnel and diamonds
i thought it was important
to not speak

but just to gaze
in a lazy warm way
as this small person
wondering what the whole show was,
if it were heaven or prison
that gyrated people in and out
of our spheres
or how you could know another person
at certain times
just by looking into their eyes.

there was this dream
that eight people
got together
before humanity
and created their souls
from three objects,
some choosing the pistol
with nastersiums and blueberries
another with a thimble and grains of sand
staying here
to remind us
that the people we love and things we love
are immortal
and the only ones that knew our names
were the ones who cared for us.

well i know the names of those stars now
and parts of their stories, rumors
of greater battles fought
over the shape of small hearts,
some of them frightened
and some of them, like lonely Sagitarius A
melancholy to the hilt
as they drag their old light out
every desert night
and remind us to love and live.