Journey of a Star

Who am I? 

I heave great pentangled weight across shifting sands. So sure in my fiveness, so alive in my one gateway. Fathoms of water crush down pressing my body to the floor and so I taste it – salt, crystal, microplastic feather my gums. The water lilts, hums over knobbled skin as I flail forward one leg then one leg then one leg then one leg then one leg (or arms, who knows?). Reaching coral I softly suction, heft all up its side. Hello, friend. Well met, friend. I missed you, friend. Sucking, pulling, whispering mouth to mouth, we intimately kiss. I drag this starry body over the cells and microbes who shudder and chunter, glad to not be the meal today. I great shadow pass from structure to structure, all mouth all legs (or arms, who knows?), all knobbled skin. I feel everything I pass over, wrap myself around tendrilled sea grass, tenderly embrace urchin, anemone, fall in love with salted breath of eel, cucumber, clownfish. Ahead of me a tower of crystallised carbon. I start to climb, other stars around also ascending up, up, up to the sky from which we fell. Jostling, all legs (or arms, who knows), and somehow, in the mumble, I am plucked, shucked from the ledge like an oyster from its shell and I tumble. I fall, a great height, down, down, down. I fall and I cannot do anything but pay my dues to gravity. 

Shoot for the stars 

That’s what they told us, young stars, all soft and carefree and new, not yet knobbled or stretched out. That’s what they told us, all reaching toward the world, all legs (or arms, who knows?). Shoot for the stars! So we climb, and climb, and climb all akimbo all aplomb, all so keen, so eager, so fresh. They did not tell us perfect fives that there was a descent, too. That we could fall. That coral could be so sharp, and hard enough to smash our knuckled backs. I watched from below, back broken, imperfect four now – as other stars climbed and fell, came tumbling, never to meet their milky galaxies of kin beyond the crystallised tower. They fell, they shattered, their casings splintered. They fell. And then… after a day and a night, the angels came. The angel fish crept out from coral homes and kissed away the flesh piece by piece. Angels came, I tell you, angels came, and I was so pleased to be digested inside an angel’s blessed stomach, legs and all (or arms, who knows?).

Homage to the star who fell 

O star of five, so alive in your one

mouth, how tenderly you pressed gut

to ground. How intimately you wandered

o’er friend, o’er friend, o’er friend. How

experimentally you waved leg after 

leg after leg after leg after leg (or arms,

who knows?), how courageously you 

scaled such dizzying heights! How

restlessly you set out to rejoin the night

sky. How decidedly you came un

sprung, how liltingly you fell. 

How splinteringly you smashed upon

the edge, and how grateful, how grateful

the angels you fed. 

Words words words

heave 

perfect five

water lilts hums

mouth to mouth

softly suction

kiss

kiss

starry body

shudder and chunter

great shadow pass

salted breath

tower

tower

crystallised carbon

start to climb

jostling, all legs

plucked, shucked

fall

fall 

down, down

cannot do anything

descend and pay

down, down

gravity

gravity 

imperfect four

never to reach

the other side

angels came

kiss

Star in Penryn Woods

it is dusk and I hear water

I am thirsty, cold, 

unpressured, deflated

winged angels come to feed,

put off by my hardness 

they swim on air back

to angel babes with nothing

in their mouths and

I – all legs legs legs legs legs

(or arms, who knows?) am left

alone to pull this tired, lost

body over unfamiliar terrain

I do not recognise the dark peat

taste of this new world

nor the crumbling softness

of residue on my skin

where is the coral? where are

my most intimate knowings?

in whose land am I? perhaps

the water will know and so

toward water I go the slowest

I’ve ever been, the most 

faltering, the most hesitant

water edge and slipping in 

relief turns to horror 

at the absence of salt