Why call for a group of stars in the shape
of a boat sailing backwards to be broken
up into three parts of a boat sailing
backwards? Haven’t they always been
constituent? Vela: the sails billowing
westward over the Milky Way.
Puppis: the deck where Jason
stood, head back navigating by
other stars. Carina: the hull.
Why not continue speaking
of it as thirds of a whole?
Trees for the forest. Cells
dying or replicating
in their turn for the body.
The lines for the poem.
This isn’t Leninist
taxonomy, but
erosion is so
alarming,
picking
up speed.
More than
half the
world’s
top
soil
gone
in
the
last
150
years.
Ergo
we
ought
to
keep
it
together.
Elizabeth Breese lives in Columbus, Ohio. She has been published in jubilat, FIELD, Barrow Street, The Chicago Review, and other literary and poetry journals. Her chapbook, The Lonely-wilds, was published by the Kent State University Press/Wick Poetry Center.
Photo on Foter.com