Category: Starlight (Issue XVI)

Meteor Envy

RC deWinter

It was an ordinary August night in this sterile suburb by the sea,
cloaking the claustrophobic day with a dark flat curtain
that did nothing to dispel the woolly air that, thick
with the unshed tears of heaven, clotted even as I breathed –
but better to be outside than choked by the clutter
of witless air-conditioned conversation.

I dragged a chair across the lawn and settled into in the almost-silence,
punctuated only by the buzz and hum of hungry things with wings and
the snuffling of the neighbor’s ancient dog, freed for his nightly tour of
duty round his postagestamp enclosure.

I sat smoking and thinking, trying to figure out how a life once so fully,
freely lived had narrowed to the confines of a holding pen whose only
exit leads straight to the slaughterhouse.
These uffish thoughts spun round the cul-de-sac of my brain
until I wanted to shout and stamp and tear my hair out by the handfuls.

Then, unannounced, the ancient hero loosed his minions, a shining
army of footloose cosmic miscreants that blazed across the sky
in the most beautiful disorder imaginable.
Like crazed schoolboys held for detention and finally freed,
these glowing pieces of the stars that made us raced and frolicked,
spinning, tumbling, showing off their colors.

I jumped up and ran along the perimeter of the yard,
following, until, winded, I stopped, lit a cigarette –
then anotherandanotherandanother, making my own sparks,
wanting to be one of them, watching until the sky returned to the staid,
empty blue it had been before, all the while hoping when I hit
the slaughterhouse, my indestructibles will find their way to wherever
Perseus is camped so I can enlist.

RC deWinter

Sky of Your Influence

Angela Acosta

Ernesto Giménez Cabellero is at it again,
his telescope always pointed towards Saturn
and his eager lunar brethren.

In 1927 he drew a whole universe of Spanish literature with
nascent nebulas spelling acrostics of esteemed men
as Perez de Ayala’s comet bursts through the sky.

Constellations chart the course of literary trajectories,
the magazines strung out like ticker tape parades
of influence, viewed through a telescope (15 céntimos per view).

There must be a place for you, femme and fair,
wedged between Ortega y Gasset and Menéndez Pidal
like the goddess Ceres in the asteroid belt providing artistic nourishment.

Ascend the observatory and take in more of the sky,
beyond the bright suns of Juan Ramón, Unamuno.
Dare we keep reciting their names?

Carmen Conde, ever the prolific writer,
settles into worm holes, jumping between lifetimes
into more welcoming futures for her, Amanda Junquera, and the cats.

All the young charges at the Residence of Señoritas
travel via spaceship, no longer bound by lightyears
of misogyny and yet to be realized dreams.

The prose and verse of “las Sinsombrero” shuttles between worlds,
precious sunbeams of resilience and tenacity
shining on the vanguard of aspiring artists.

The constellations of herstory move with the seasons,
the breezes of archival discoveries and news coverage,
a whole universe finally within her grasp.

Angela Acosta

U n f o l d

Kristiana Reed

 See the stars
                    watch the moon
u n f o l d
        ​tuck
​        yourself in.
 
Bedtime wishes
shooting star promises
you are too little
        ​to be bold
but the stars
        ​glisten
as daggers do
and tiny hands find sharpness
​        they cut
s l i c e
the innocence away
​        asunder
        ​tuck
        ​yourself in.
 
Bedtime stories
of dragons, of maidens
you are too girl
​        to be bold​
and so
        ​you burn
watch the moon
and let your ​        wings
​u n f o l d
look at you
tattered as ribbons
​        as ashes
a corpse woman
of the girl     ​they wanted
you to be
​        too bold ​    now
​        too old​​        now
​        too dragon ​   now
 
sharp teeth and talons,
scaly skin and belly heart warmth
​        of the Earth’s core and kin,
go ​        on
​        tuck
​        yourself in.

Kristiana Reed

Self Portrait as Luna

Annika Gangopadhyay

The clouds whisper my name at dusk—
        I am born after the sun dies, out of silence.
The softness covers my shoulders, wraps itself around my body
        until I am a shadow. Below me 
phantoms burn in the dark
        and men cut my hair into constellations. I still see the silver        
        sickles in my sleep, 
                caving inward,
        a field of blades cold against my skin. Lovers curl into crescents 
ablaze with emptiness on the grass,
                and the world is full of waning lullabies, 
        black skies,
                clouds falling at my feet like dust. 
See how I cradle this burgeoning wasteland,
        this cold inferno.
Milk pours out of my skin where the stars should have been,
    and I gently rock the earth back and forth, 
back and forth,
        before the blades nd my throat, 
before a soft red cuts through the sky,
        before the constellations are ablaze, 
Before I die at dawn.

Annika Gangopadhyay