Micha Boyett
Star
“A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.” -Revelation 12:1
“…keep warm this small hot naked star/ fallen into my arms.” -Luci Shaw, “Mary’s Song”
After the angel dissolved, I stood among the skies,
clothed not in spun linen, but in fire:
the sun’s silk my gown. I leaned into the swirl of gold and lit.
Have I created my Creator?
My mother clucks her tongue. Questions, she says,
cause confusion. She could never hold what I saw:
the crown on this plain brown head,
twelve stars in motion, set spinning like a child’s toy,
and rushing toward me, flames in its wake, blazed
the greater star, its hot white orb.
Should I tell you it entered me, how the warm simmer settled?
When I woke to this dirt floor, my mother’s voice
in the next room, issuing me out the door,
I ran my hands down my belly,
knew what is true is crown, not dirt.
Later, when the nausea churned, when the accusations
birthed, when all I loved turned enemy,
I stood in the garden, arms raised,
closed my eyes and let the spinning crown encircle me,
felt this star descend to human form.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In