Whose translucence do you seek?
Another’s silhouette you’d shape
into a star blossom you’d mimic
if only you could imagine yourself
differently. Not some lowly Sol
on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram,
but a full-blown yellow Hyper-Giant
like Rho Cassiopeiae or its blue cousin
Zeta Scorpii, which is so luminous
you’d fry in a second if you’d even
speak its secret name. Your own name
is encrypted, given that your birth
was sacrosanct and cradled into
swaddling. Your mother lifted you up
to see the lights in the sky, fluttered
you down to see the dirt of our ground.
You saw the grounding, and arose from
the blisters and pustules to invigorate
the fully-boned anatomic form you heft
now and walk with through the passages.
This cannot go on long, and so you shelter
in the mountains, imagining creations
of ice and rock you’ll form into hard art,
and periodically pelletize into some
little glint of insight from oppressive
boulders lying on your shoulders.
You’d willingly miss all the sightings,
mistake the music, if only your own light
didn’t break your back or shatter others.
