Love Poem

I found myself
the darkest sky
I could.

No clouds,
no moon,
no mountains

to obscure
the vault—

three hundred
and sixty degrees
of azimuth, and
half as much the
other way.

And as my eyes
adjusted to the
darkness, the sky
began to bloom.

And so, beneath
that garden of light,
I picked one star.

I counted it
and I named it:
one, a word.

I picked another:
two, a word.

I picked a third
a fourth, a fifth:

three a word
four a word
five a word.

Every point
of light
I named
that selfsame word.   

Like a rosary
I whispered,
fast, so fast;
counting stars
instead of beads.

Degree by degree,
I counted.

I named until
the job was done;

until,
minute by minute,
the entire sky
was named for you.