It starts with starlight: wandering children
out in the wilderness of midnight yards
having been told the spell to make wishes work,
these angels that number the singing hair
on the lid of God, out there taking account
of the steps to heaven, both possible and true,
to lose themselves amidst cotillions threaded
far too fine. They forget their wishes
under the sun of brash dreams as green ships
sail blue leaves, bookends of great-grandmothers
gown virgin daughters, silver cups spill silver
serpents, and their names twist in winds
natural as the growth of their own rooted ribs.
And it ends; I will not lie: I do not know how
that they awaken with starlight-caught
diamonds within pupils deeper than night.