We followed the tracks treading up Pine Mountain,
Cut into the earth as if a great astrological beast
In search of celestial fields happened upon a New World.
Alive in a fit of rutting, Capricorn's prize to scale
The blue pines throwing off their scent of blood and cinnamon.

Astrology is a shoe on the earth's foot.
The shoe is lined in silver.

The stars catch in our eyes like sleep,
Pinch like fingernails.

I only wore dresses in those days of discovery,
Afraid of my legs sheathed in pants,
The dominance of a belt set heavy on my uterus,
The promise of strength forcing each calf into a boot.

My dress fabric caught the brush
Like a rag of felt polishing nails.
Tendrils of thicket penetrated my ankles.
This was my cross to bear,

A crown of thorns tattooing my feet in blood
Congealing in the desert air like wine
On a window ledge, forgotten
In its own glass, crystallizing like a mouth
Of rubies before evaporation,
Making us all remember Jesus for a little while.

In the parking lot I made bets to rearrange the constellations,
Rummaging for the glow of holy rock hidden
In your cellars where spiders were rumored to spin time,
Where fruit tasted mealy as an artery of bone.

You stumbled in dress shoes over the stone, complaining
I knew the map to each crevice where our ankles splintered
Like the wood of old words, as if stomping our mountain
Of glass with soft shoes prevented the inevitable cracking.

The forest held no mercy for velvet and perfume.
Just look at all the others, you said.
They wear fleece and boots.
They are dirty and their heaven is brown.

The observatory sat like a top hat on a floor.
Astrology is no time to be incongruous.
Leave that to the moon waxing and waning
On her own accord. Gravity will be a feather
On the ground, passing time before stronger winds.

Thin men in parkas pointed to the sky,
A black scarf turning in on itself
As if suctioned by a vacuum
Hungry to ingest its own motor.
The stars met us with their strong eyes,
No eyelids to hide under,
Blinking as if full of phosphoresces.

Squeezing my hand, you reminded me these bulbs
Burned out years before we even met the earth.

A lecture cascaded from the star tower,
Though I imagined "nebula" as a body disease,
Red dwarfs to be moles on Marilyn Monroe.
The astronomers passed out free postcards
Of earth snapped beyond itself.
This could be an X-ray of our own
Intestines diabolically magnified.
This could be a blue ball on sale at the toy store.
This could be everything.

I wanted to bow under the buildings,
Apologize for never naming new moons
Or new destinations, for never looking up.

For two dollars we bought a photo of Saturn
Covered in a grainy yellow glue shining
In the dark like a cat's eye.
Saturn's rings are belts of stone around the belly
Orbiting like a nomadic caravan hauling
Their baubles across the Sahara.
I could no more carry myself across the universe
On a camel, seek out a planet close enough
For both of us to touch.

The telescope protruded like an angel's thumb
Pointing to the kinesics of God, of light. We climbed a staircase, my dress catching
On the metal rungs in our procession
To the hole of the beast.
The eye-well opaque as wax.
The aperture, large as a dinner plate,
But faintly delicate as the linguistics of lovers.

Pressing my eye to this eye of glass, An outcropping of steel aimed towards Saturn's rings,
I jumped back to see Saturn,
A white circle big as a hole punch,
White rings thin as a signature looping across,
The blurry symbol of a quick "s" or "c" letter
As if space had signed its full name in a rush.

You scoffed at this thumbnail sketch,
At this castrated mess of equipment, you said,
Ceasing to show the distinction of planets,
The power of orbiting matter by turning
It into a sideshow of free peeks and
Astronomical propaganda.
We left Pine Mountain without
Dropping coins in the donation box.

I burned our postcards years ago,
The same month I seemed to misplace
Your letters, forget your birthday.
Our Saturn photo lost its iridescence
In the following spring when the waters came
In through my windows like a flood, rain
Dissolving the glue that held our planet together.

From Highway 20 the observatory shone
Like the sleek hood of a limousine,
Spot-lit as the moon overtook this mountain.
Faint figures, rising in perspective like darkened
Shadows on stilts, exhibited smaller telescopes
To point in every direction but ours.

Suzanne Burns Her first book of poems is scheduled to appear from Archer Press of Santa Monica, California next spring. She is currently working on a short story collection, The Dream Tree, and a second book of poems. The second poetry book, The Fairy Tale Sestinas, is a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes re-told with a less subservient, more feminist slant. She is also the Associate Editor of Dynamic Patterns literary zine, which is currently accepting poetry submissions. The address: www.dynamicpatterns.com.