She Only Misses Him at Midnight

She believed that the heavens cut

precisely in half; that the celestial

sphere opened neatly along its seam

like a plastic children’s globe–that

we occupy only the empty hollow.

 

She believed that the bottom filled

with a sea around Andromeda–

an eternal punishment bred in

the deepest part of the universe–

the top left dry so that Cassiopeia

may freely witness the havoc she wrought.

She believed him when he proclaimed her

the most beautiful; when he denounced

 

the other’s messages and memories;

when he whispered a new story

for her to grasp– a story that glimmered.

She believed in fruit made of gold

trapped in dragon’s coils, wickedly

 

tantalizing in its gilded skin, worth

prideful kingdoms, audacious victories,

and the devastating competition– the

raging love– of two men. She believed in

pain and magic, loveliness and treachery,

as faithfully as she believed in the power

of the grief felt by a betrayed woman,

star-sculpted or otherwise.

 

She believed these things silently,

and only said aloud (to the rubbed-raw photo

in her hand and the winking sky above)

that belief cuts like fractured crystals:

with a beautiful shine.