there are people dancing and
I am fascinated with a bottle of champagne.
the waiter pours me another glass and grins.
is it New Years again this week?

it’s not, so I take my drink outside and
notice fireworks in a nearby patch of grass,
where there stands a lady and her telescope
gazing at the sober black sky.

it isn’t New Years, I tell her.
why are you looking at the sky?
oh, it’s the stars! she tells me excitedly,
and I watch in earnest disbelief

as her golden hair humbly
conceals the suspicion of a smile,
because she knows, and I know,
that her eyes are painted with the stratosphere.