<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-size: 22px;">Dead Stars</span><div style="font-size: 22px;"><br></div><div><div class="field field--body" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-top: 1.25rem; line-height: 1.5; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 22px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Out here, there’s a bowing even the trees are doing.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> Winter’s icy hand at the back of all of us.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Black bark, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness that feels</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">so mute it’s almost in another year.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">I am a hearth of spiders these days: a nest of trying.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">We point out the stars that make Orion as we take out</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> the trash, the rolling containers a song of suburban thunder.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">It’s almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> recycling bin until you say, <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Man, we should really learn</span></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">some new constellations.</span></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">And it’s true. We keep forgetting about Antlia, Centaurus,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> Draco, Lacerta, Hydra, Lyra, Lynx.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my mouth is full</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> what’s larger within us, toward how we were born.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Look, we are not unspectacular things.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> We’ve come this far, survived this much. What</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and said, <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">No</span>.</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">No</span>, to the rising tides.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the land?</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">What would happen if we used our bodies to bargain</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">for the safety of others, for earth,</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;"> if we declared a clean night, if we stopped being terrified,</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">if we launched our demands into the sky, made ourselves so big</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="long-line" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-indent: -32px; margin-left: 32px; display: inline-block;">people could point to us with the arrows they make in their minds,</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem;">rolling their trash bins out, after all of this is over?</p></div><div class="field field--field_credit" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.56; caret-color: rgb(52, 52, 52); color: rgb(52, 52, 52);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; font-size: 22px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- Ada Limón</p></div></div></body></html>