Last night the moon was shaped like a scoop. Only
every time I reached for it, it skipped away.
So I gathered the stars by hand.
Since I had never studied them, I named them myself
before dropping them into the skillet.
They spattered and hopped on the hot cast iron.
Without them, midnight collapsed, cape-like.
I thought he might never leave—then the sun rose
orange. I cracked it, though somewhat remorsefully,
on the squared edge of the pan, burned my knuckles,
let the flames spill into the ocean,
blotted up every trace of him with rain clouds.
Previously published in verisimilitude, corrupt press
Cadence Collective: Long Beach Poets 