You tell me where in midheaven
Gemini is and I think of Copernicus,
the formation
of stardusted planets fitting
in his mind like pins in a lock.
You draw my birth chart,
map the shape the cosmos took
as it swirled over my first breath,
my mother’s beaded forehead
and her stinging pelvic bone.
Sun in Aries, you say, moon
in Libra, the game of jacks
the stars play each time
I leave something and go back
searching for it: a lost diamond
on a dark street. When I was baptized,
my father insisted the priest
lower me three times into holy water –
the liquid muteness of hydrogen
and oxygen, the organ’s wasp nest
breaking each time I surfaced.
You tell me that Venus and Neptune
are conjuncting and I should stay on axis
and follow my muse
and I think of how I leapt from the pool
before the whole congregation and no one knew
if it was because I was full of the Lord
or I couldn’t wait to leave him.
The constellation Libra hangs in space
above the moon-damp clouds.
The starred horns of Aries extend
from the vernal equinox into the bones
of my fingers, my heart cut
from muscle and adaptation,
muscle’s oneness with blood.
You tell me what gods I’m ruled by
and I think none, I think all,
I think of my mother’s DNA opening itself
at the seams, the chaotic act
of breath rising from little more
than this