Fallen Sea Star

The chilly North Pacific: we build a fire for the moths, a lamplight. Their wings, angry with flames. Sky: dim and small. In your standing stillness, you are an old clock that has run out of chimes. The small hours of the past, a fossil, a nerve. I hand you a flask. You say: ‘August is dying. The stones are cold.’ In your hand, a dead sea star. Summer bronze burned into your skin. Your eyes, moist black pearls. Along the horizon, dark fog is an oil slick floating against the sky’s gray wall. Your silhouette, solitude, the wind’s nimble stitching of your hair. You say: ‘Memories are wounds infected with melancholy, that push the past deeper into ruins’ —the old houses sold, the Village demolished. To dust. You ask: ‘Why did you leave?’ I answer: ‘There is nothing left to remind me to remember. After the bricks fell and shattered, the villagers became anxious’ You reply: ‘Trepidation is God’s offering. Listen! There’s no rush to reach the future’ — a turnpike of unraveled lives, sun-bleached ghosts, pale, tired. All night long moths fly into the light, into the stars, the flames. The wind stirs their powdery ashes. Body against body, there is deep silence between us. The waves break. The future rolls in, disconnects the past. The sea star falls from your hand. Make a wish. ---------------------------------------------- from my fourth book: ‘The Translator’ (Transcendent Zero Press) “Rattle” was first published in ‘Orion headless’