Not a sky watcher, I didn’t expect to get so excited
when it passed overhead and I caught sight of it.
Cash asks over and over if the stars are changing colors.
He says they look to be on fire. He believed the moon
followed children into their rooms at night to watch
them sleep. My excitement grew. I knew the space station
could see everything, even the future. What is space
if not distance if not time? Reaching so far into the heavens,
I knew it shook the hand of God—God
as astronaut bringing me only good news. Yes, stars
are burning, Cash. I am afraid if I stop writing about God
then he will stop coming to me. At night there are stars
burning in my chest. In between wake and sleep, I think
of the fawn I passed sitting quietly beside the road
its small legs tucked beneath its body. The neck shaped
into an S—Stephanie. Stephanie in a sleeping tent. Stephanie
with tea and oranges. Stephanie afraid of everything he.
A car pulls over with an officer. The lights blue and burning.
I get closer and closer to dying. In the burning spot
in my chest, I realize as I get closer, I get further from God.
This seems backwards. I panic over the ways I can’t leave
my children. Almost summer solstice, I jump up and down
in the grass, waving as if welcoming home some brave
spaceman, waving as if I will live forever.