To the Mother & Child in Orbit by Grand Design

or Illicium Verum

by Molly Vogel

A restlessness pervades the body; I wake preemptively, nights of it—
now, God’s work. You can get used to anything. Light has yet revealed the picture except—
a spider mends her web, redacting a stray leaf. And how did the spider get this high? And leaf ?
The articulation of thread peaks under moonlight in great design.
A gnat caught. Another’s wings pluck a morse chord. I reconstruct my way around the dark, babe in arm—
the quiet is so present
the arachnids are weaving. Your tufts of breathing poise.
I get the sense this is happening everywhere, around the dark— constellate, star-anised astronomer and star.