by Beth Boylan

This globe of hydrangea hangs on by a thread
after last night’s storm, its bluish petals turned brown

like that patch of hard, grassless earth the sparrows
search for seed or the cinnamon milk left behind in its bowl,

the decaying teeth of a one-armed monkey named Xing Xing,
who Emily and I have watched for months on our tiny screens

in place of the sleep that eludes us. Rapt by her devouring
vegetables and fruits, and her huge, crooked grin, which

at certain moments, seems to hold all the love in the world:
this world that’s on fire, where no one seems able to sleep.

Back in the fall, her caretaker, the old Buddhist nun,
would have surely held my hydrangea in her hand,

gently snipped it from its stem, and whispered a prayer.
A proper pruning as I should have done, instead of

letting winter set in—

Strange solace, then, this morning,
the poet’s words:

that we don’t have to do anything weird
to reach outer space, we’re already here:

billions of astronauts sharing space,
rocketing through stars—all of us, all of this—

to be lost,
to already be where we are going.

____________________________________________________________