Apostrophe to What's Still Here

                  Three brilliant pinpricks
to delineate the belt he wears
                  across his waist. Barracks

of black for roaming stars,
                  the sky's a dizzy wreck
of half-formed forms, the tears

                  of light suggestions merely
of the universe behind. See
                  what you can. Orion first:

mostly darkness, shadow to the glint
                  of bow and arrow in his fist,
an intimation of his spleen. Light

                  equals promise. Don't suggest
that I'm unstable—my patent
                  is the world, its drama,

mystery's womb. The schema
                  of the sky's a perfect fit:
black everywhere, a yawning coat

                  stitched with its opposite,
hysteric thread. See all that's not
                  there in this strident rite

of anti-moderation. Give me night,
                  mooding, staring at stars. Orion.
Lit with flair. His darkling body split.

Copyright © 2007 Christine Marshall All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission