Molly Fisk: Firmament

Consider the layers of civilization 
enfolding us — hours and minutes 
keep track of the days, whose 
seven sheaves are bundled into a week
and then stacked in average foursomes 
amounting, sort of, to months, although 
the moon waxes and wanes in her own time, 
pulling the oceans, casting only reflected 
light on the calendar open on somebody’s 
counter, the kitchen clock’s serious face. 
Daylight and darkness are real, and seasons, 
but everything else is a story — Hera, 
Juno, Joseph and Mary, Friday, noon and late 
October — a vast network of interlocking 
explanation, entirely theoretical firmament 
on which actual lives are led.

Copyright 2019 Molly Fisk

Molly Fisk’s books include The More Difficult Beauty (Hip Pocket Press, 2010).