Stars

 when I have trouble sleeping
       I recite love poems to stars
             old friends who
tethered mariners to horizons
       and kept them from sailing off
              the sharp tabletop of earth
just one star is enough
       one thin argent dime 
             to reach up, pluck one down
put it in my mouth 
       how sweet a single drop
              of honey on a lost tongue 
how kind, a single candle in
       a graveyard
               the sky never seems to run out
the darkness, full of them
       as if someone knew how
               much we'd stumble about 
wringing blood from
        tired hearts in narrow closets
               and scattered them like vowels
with which to string out
         love from the slippery L
                the gouging V
see how my hands like nets 
         are teeming with them now 
                 the light humming like 
fireflies, can you feel it
         how with these words
                 I am pouring them all over
                         your sorrowful head
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