-not last night's sky,

but tonight's sky which is clear

and ripe for a wandering eye, the waxing

crescent contributing in its muted role.

I'll walk a short distance to "Nancy's Country Store"

open 'till 10, for a sugar-free, low-sodium drink

touting an "advanced electrolyte system" then a shortcut 

through the backyards on the return to the house, but I won't go inside.

––I'll wander around the landscape absorbed by the lushness

of late August's atmosphere, a lingering mid-evening scent

salted by the southerlies skimming the bay, 32 points of the compass,

stars all over the place, and I still can't make out the pictures.

––the stars are eating themselves to death,

devouring themselves in a fierceness barely understood

within the realm of our natural order of things.

neither man, woman, laughing hyena, king-shit, nor insect

can begin to fathom the ferociousness of stars.

the romance of the great open-air convertibles should remain

within the province of the Moon, as dead as it is.

there is no romance to be found in the stars up-close.

––tonight, cloaked beneath a glittering firmament 

which deepens its fatal attitude with increasing scrutiny,
it's determined to be too god-damned out here,

and the time for retreating into the house has come.
Swansea / August / 2018