I planted a small patch of flowers last night.
They are called ipomoeas – which, as I
sound the word off my tongue, sticks
to the air like honey.
Seasons ago – in younger dirt –
my mother planted them too.
She called them star singers.
She told me, when my hair was
still in tight braids, that
at night the moon grew lonely
in the empty charcoal air.
So from the earth bloomed star singers,
which erupt in darkness.
As their lullaby floats
through constellations, the moon
drifts to sleep – taking the
stars with it.
Standing in dirtier air, under
older constellations, I planted
star gazers for us as a test;
if they bloomed then it would
sound to me or the stars or
to the unkempt stems of bluegrass
that you were real.
I stood in the thick, billowing
midnight air, waiting to see if –
in blackness – they bloomed.