supernova and other manifestations
of my depression.

1.
i think of reaching up into the sky
& squeezing the stars like blue berries
popped in between my fingers--

2.
when my brother & i were little we
would go blueberry picking
& i would sit behind the
rows of bushes to eat
the 

3.
stars-- bruised 
between my fingers-- i learned
to keep them in my pockets
for when i forgot
the names of the constellations--
Orion Orion for whom i 
wear worry like a belt--

4.
laid them out like marbles 
in the soil so that when 
it got dark & the sky threw
a slip of cloud over
her torso i could 
still remember where
Castor & Pollux stand
to raise a mirror of me--
call me gemini--

5.
we were all bound to
expansion-- there is no
such thing as the life
of a star--

6.
nova meaning "new"
meaning tulip necks & nooses
& the hooks to drape dish towels--

6.
nova meaning "new"
meaning telescope i shoot myself
with onto the surface of mercury
for everything to 
burn like the head of a match--

6.
nova meaning "new"
meaning watching Kepler
fall from existence is a burst
of all a star once contained
1604 & the sky bombarded itself
with the entrails of another star--

7.
the stellar evolution of death--
the last stage-- the fireworks--

8.
i watched fireworks from my 
father's lap at the carnival
while i ate peach rings
& if only briefly i forgot
both about mortality &
about the stars--

9.
supernova: the art of dying
fabulously

10.
the final catastrophic destruction
of everything that was once a star
swallow in explosion--

11.
i fantasize about my 
body in supernova-- not
in bones but in the collected
silhouette of a constellation
made out of a handful of blue berries--

12.
the supernova may disperse all
that was once remaining of the star--

13.
i fall apart at 30,000 kilometers 
per second so i can-- if only briefly--
outrun light--

14.
all i once was can be explained in
gravitational waves--
i make the other stars
question morality & the impermanence 
of a constellation--

1.
this is likely caused by 
gravitational collapse 
inward on the star's core--

1.
folded inward like a cave
of sand dug with blue
plastic shovel at the beach--
dug & dug until i found
where the white crabs were hiding
the un-named planets--

1.
& the shockwave is known
to cause the formation of
new stars

1.
nova meaning "new"
meaning wake up again--

1.
nova meaning "new"
meaning unlearning the desire
to die--

1.
nova meaning "new"
meaning re-configuring
your body into a new
constellation & accepting 
the inevitability of
gradual degeneration
& one final fantastic
supernova