Decades of Starlight

By Kathryn denHeeten

The stars surprise me
Right where they should be
Startled and snared
Hooked little smiles

I close my eyes
and she’s past the barbed wire
Her snowshoes on
A pack of matches in her mitten

She understands this landscape
Midnight on the crusty snow
The river in its slumber
Empty little nests in the trees

But she doesn’t see the future
She doesn’t know me
Motionless under her constellations
Decades of starlight in my pocket like a stone.