I’d like to tell you
my earliest memory of stars:
dozens of dozens of diamonds
scattered freehand
on a velvet midnight sky
above a gentle sea,
the delicate acoustics
of salt and sand and surf
supporting the soaring chorus
of the Pleiades.

I’d like to tell you
that’s how it really was —
so much lovelier than
bits of gilt paper
and paste stuck carefully
into squares within squares
on the beige Sunday School wall.

~ Rebekah Choat