I am small and tiny,
A lens
Looking at snapshots
Of how the world has been.
One day I will crack
For good,
And I will see no more.

I will sit on the back step
and I will see the stars.
No more than pinpricks,
I know they are huge,
And full of promise,
And burning,
And dying.

Someone else is seeing these stars.
Has seen, and will again.
My mother's eyes are cloudy now;
Stars so huge and vacant,
All gone or dying or dead.
Light is memory, with
The dark rooms behind my eyes
Painted ghost, amnesiac silver.

Cancer is blooming,
Like a discarded Valentine's bouquet.
People are so unexpectedly complex --
Like cutting into agate
And finding crystalline dreams.

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