Shocks And Changes By Chelsea Rathburn

Summoned at three, I soothe my daughter’s cries
and, turning back toward bed, turn off her light.
Out of the dark, a galaxy appears,
pale stars scattered across the plaster skies
by some other child who thought this room at night
would be his always. The moons, the meteors—
all his hours spent peeling and arranging—
for two years now have hung above my head
entirely unnoticed. The old wives’ tale
says all the stars whose light we see are dead,
but that’s not true. We fail to see them changing
as they change. And on this closer, human scale
and present tense, this room, this child I’ve kissed,
this night will always and never quite exist.