Synoptic Pattern
I pawned a summer because I couldn’t afford to be
happy. What I wanted from life was out of season.
What makes a mistake verifiable? Is it the moment
sun detaches it from the stem, letting it fall through
the fingers of the branch? I need a compass to tell
you things. My horoscope translates the directions
of light to freak us out. Once, I was a child changing
the positions of the stars on a glow in the dark ceiling,
& the part of me that wonders: if I’d arranged them
differently would our love have fallen through their
golden scaffolding? becomes the yellow crime scene
tape of: if we fall asleep to the right cosmic conditions,
we could wake up together / if we fall asleep together,
we could wake up under the right pattern of stars.
Eva Lewis is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. Their work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies including: Broken Sleep Books, The Poetry Business, Aster Lit, A Velvet Giant, and others. They are an editor of SINK Magazine, and a submissions reader for The Selkie.