The Poet’s Journey
(after a painting by Lily Moon)


The girl has stars attached to her wrists
by strings. The stars like fireflies. I mean
alive, with agendas. They’ve come to take her.
But, on her head is a greening tree,
even her dress is hemmed in trees.
A small man stands in this forest with a lantern
squinting into the weak light, calling her name.
She can’t shake him or the root system.
The stars, in the centers of their own haloes,
raise her arms a little, just a little
and wobble with the weight.