(Lynx Constellation – Lynx)

You can hardly make him out in the zigzagging dim
by design; he’s flooded in veiled agency denied his audience.

I wish I knew how to mark my territory in jagged seams
of stolen light,

or beckon bodies that sparkle transparent
in the night sky. I think I dated this constellation once:

charming as he was unrepentant.
A constellation’s heart commits to nothing but change.

Mine lives outside my body, sheds cells it can’t afford to lose.
You ask if I’ve tried painting lipstick over cellophane

or stain over rust. But I’ve learned that hunting what’s moored
is easy and a grappling bruise swells heavy in place. I didn’t come here

for rejection or forgiveness, cracked as I am hyphenated—
abbreviated—lost in loss. I came to change the force field.

You see, loving him is rubbing a stone warm.
There’s transference on both sides. Only one reverts

to something approaching its original state.