There was a logic to it, the way my mother loved astrology.
She was Aquarius but wanted to graze the back of intrepid Leo
with her bare palm.
She blew blooms of kisses, rosy and rich, into the
black tapestry hanging above us,
little star, big star blinking back
like they had been touched by an awestruck hand.
On the picnic cloth of spilled
brew and sparkling wine,
they swam and sang and slept while
Poor Mother told me stories of her twelve lovers in the sky.
One day, Ares fought the bull,
graceful horns colliding like the creations of new
worlds, and when sullen stratus
blinded the stars, my mother would
cry like Mary over her baby Jesus would
if she had seen him
punctured in crimson and nailed with fate.
Twins, she had always wanted,
Babies with flaxen hair and fair smiles who
would have celestial wombs
to bare twins of their own. Instead,
she got me, my smoldering eyes unable to guide
stars safely across the charcoal night,
but stubby hands guiding Crayola across paper,
pudgy nose running as if I were
pouring memory upon memory down
on my mother’s skin,
but as she traces with her fingers across
my constellation freckles
she tells me
I’m the first kiss she never had,
I’m the trip to Venus she never will have,
I’m the sailor with a weak compass but a strong mind,
beautiful like autumn reddened, yellowed, purpled
with its precious jewels,
sweet like silent rain trickling on the face
slowly, slowly,
rough and wild and unforgettable
like crushing stars between her teeth.