These cloudless nights, the sky becomes a wheel 
where suns revolve around an axle star …
Look there, and choose. Decide which moon is yours. 
Sink Lethe-ward, held only by a heel. 

Advantage. Disadvantage. Who can tell? 
To see is not to know, but you can feel 
the tug sometimes: the gravity, the shell 
as lustrous as damp pearl. You sink, you reel 

toward some draining revelation. Air: 
too thin to grasp, to breath. Such pressure. Gasp. 
The stars invert, electric, everywhere. 
And so we fall, down-tumbling through night’s fissure: 

two beings pale, intent to fall forever 
around each other—fumbling at love’s tether …
now separate, now distant, now together.

Originally published by Sonnet Scroll

 
 

 
Michael R. Burch’s poems, translations, essays, articles and letters have appeared more than 2,000 times in publications which include TIME, USA Today, Writer’s Digest and hundreds of literary journals and websites. His poetry has been translated into Arabic, Czech, Farsi, Gjuha Shqipe, Italian, Macedonian, Russian, Turkish and Vietnamese. He also edits www.thehypertexts.com.