Constellations – Vismai Rao

All night we try to pluck out constellations from our feeble 
knowledge of astronomy. There is no moon

but there is        light enough—

The sky: black
the mountains, blacker. 

                     I am certain
this isn’t a dream, even though you 
can no longer corroborate this memory. 

                     Even though I’m left 
too many uncorroborated memories—

I don’t recall a single word
we spoke. My neurons are firing 

things at me now: 
interstellar travel, our latest

loves, maya: the mother of illusions, but I know 
these are from other nights—

Of this one I remember 
close to nothing. 

Stars jigsawed 
against the night.

And us,
acutely aware of them—

Vismai Rao’s poems appear or are forthcoming in the Indianapolis Review, RHINO, Salamander, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Kissing Dynamite, & The Shore. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Orison Anthology. She lives in India.