Desert Nights

DESERT NIGHTS Cappy Love Hanson

Dark drives its wedge deep between day and day, creaks night open like a wrought-iron hinge. Moon rounds the mountains late behind cloud-scribble, finds stars already scuffling for position, swaggering around Polaris.

Those first years, sitting out in plastic chairs amid the grass and creosote—landed as any two people with graves awaiting them—we felt starshine light on our cheeks like tiny celestial kisses. The sky ’ s slow spin polished our rough-edged days smooth.

But sit out here enough decades, and stars begin to sting like nettles. Now the galaxy ’ s a gritty wheel that sandpapers flesh and bones and hearts back to their primal components: stardust to stardust.

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