Talismanual

In the Serengeti
Of the night

A wild dream melts on a dark wing.

I’m all tangled up in my wine face
Looking out of an open

Window, its screen baleen to
A moth in the way of Jonah.

No mountain light, no cactus light.
Even the wind took itself away. 
But glimmer still the stars in heaven
As I’m looking north, northeast to

Polaris, Cynosure.
Something familiar 
At the end of Ursa Minor.

A kinship spans a galaxy.

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*This poem was first published 2023 by Compass Rose, a now-defunct online journal