Stars - Lisa Owens Viani

[Larry Robinson]

Stars

“Things seem strong.”—Jane Hirshfield

Small things—
like the silver band of flowers
around my finger—
seemed strong
until my wrist
(which seemed strong)
splintered
and the ring
had to be cut in two. 

Bigger, built things—bridges, tunnels,
planes, steel-spined buildings—
all seem strong.
Until they fail and fall.
Natural things too—the earth for one—
seem strong—until the deep fault fractures
and quakes, and shakes us to our cores.

Things—not things—like the strongest
person I knew—seemed strong (invincible even)
until a clot exploded in her brain,
into a thousand stars that took her
to another universe in an instant.

The cartilage, the blood,
the constellations of bone
that knit us all together,
the networks of nerves, of veins—
no longer seem so strong.
Things seem fragile. 

	- Lisa Owens Viani
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