Our Star
by Nicholas Rombes
How many times do we have to kill
The death star? First in movies and then
In real life. And then it flowers again against the blank
Black sky of our imaginations.
If only you could swallow it, make it bloom
In your belly.
It’s become an obsession
Girl, like you, your wounds carved
Delicate and deep. The soft pink
Shellac of the inside of your mind.
These woods hide
Themselves at dusk, curling
Up into the small smoky pockets of the night
Where we pound our sorrow
Into small seeds to plant in someone
Else’s garden. Someone else’s child
Put into a cage. Someone else’s mad
Dash cut short at the river bank.
Can’t you feel it, the way it wants us
All now, turns its magnificent
White beam to each of us in turn
And — don’t go girl don’t go
Yet. Stay with me until we go
Blank together.
About the Author:
Nicholas Rombes is author of the novel The Absolution of Robert Acestes Laing (Two Dollar Radio), Ramones, from the 33 1/3 series (Bloomsbury) and Cinema in the Digital Age(Columbia UP). His film The Removals was released in 2016. Rombes is a columnist and contributing editor at Filmmaker Magazine, and teaches in Detroit, Michigan.
