What to the Black Cosmonaut is a Constellation Malachi Jones

for Blind Willie Johnson

Me and Papa share the air. we tear into a joke. the way kids go in the nighttime, fingers affixed up tearing thru across wind and weight at whitehot stars. little thimble’d rebels, how they stitch their strings to streak to streak to streak of light.

The road to heaven is paved in the gruff of a blind man burned by lye water lying in the ash of his homestead. steady gospel goes to god and a black man chews his gristle. no eclipse’s been seen here since 1905—much less a star, much less a blues man. name’s light enough to phase through a dusk jacket; pulse a note to Voyager I and ping back home; a golden sim card flung spaceward like skipping stones coils with the voice of a ghost. mr Johnson sang in and about Dark and each day the earth is becoming a smaller watch face.

Red blinks help track late-night aviators who trace wildly in my skybox, skewing the new Dippers and lit-by-digit lines. what respect do

I have for flight paths? There are no upper corner suns. please night-trace like no trajectory need be terminal.