When your father finally left for good,
we stole Jim Beam from his secret stash,
and staggered to your splintered treehouse,

where we once played tea parties
with our teddy bears, and where now, we teetered
on floorboards rotting with moss and mildew.

We pushed aside leaves and branches, pointing
to what we thought we knew about the sky. Here,
the Little Dipper was a mug with a long handle,

and the Big Dipper, a saucepan, the same kind
your mother used for Chef Boyardee
when she was too hot and too tired to cook.

With my brother’s telescope, we outlined
clusters of stars splattered across the sky,
the ones that could look like real diamonds,

but we knew were more like rhinestones,
cheap gems sparkling like Walmart jewelry
that lay scattered across our big sisters’ dressers.