ConstellAtIons

coNstEllatioNs Rory Hatchel

The sky is a bitch curled at her master’s feet. She has stolen each star from the dusk, one by one, and buried them in my neighbor’s yard. T. calls them ghosts, sprinkles them across his home like memories of midnight.

The skyline is a hearth gone cold, as the rain takes off the city’s clothes, slowly unzipping bridges.

John Coltrane improvises a gentle solo for his second wife, but Heartbreak is struggling to keep the candles lit. She can’t hear the steam in his song rising, a flower budding inside dumpsters and drunks alike.

The swan song he whistles is emptier than the black tar dripping off my fingertips, the tea I left on the counter at home where Heartbreak waits up for me in the dark.