Asteryne

Begin in the middle of it. NaPoWriMo Day 8

Image by Blackthorn

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– and his hand
on the small of her back
which is also the wash,
the place the sand
goes soft.

alluvium.

creosote
flowering.
rain that has not fallen here
in his lifetime
but has fallen here in hers.


the sidewinder’s mark
in the sand.

the glyph
someone else
already ended
in a hand
that was not hers.


he is looking at her face
the way a man looks
at a map
he will have to redraw
from memory.

arch of the brow.
nose.
jawline twice,
because the jawline
is the part
he will lose first.

the room
he is building inside himself
will be small.
will be lit.
will have no door.


she is not looking at his face.

she has her face
in his neck.
smelling him
the way the kit fox smells rain.

pheromone.
older than sight.

her ear
twitching
the way the jackrabbit’s does
when the wind shifts.

her teeth
against his collarbone.
not biting.

almost.


the jackrabbit
from under the bursage.
her form
still warm.

she knows what it is
to make a place
for something
she cannot keep.

witness.
not metaphor.


neither of them
says the thing.

the stone
has been in the sun
all afternoon.
the heat is the reason
you do not touch the stone.

conduction.

they are touching
the stone.


this is how they speak.

the sidewinder’s mark.
the twitch of the jackrabbit’s ear.
the blue
in the raven’s wing
that is not blue
until the light hits it.

iridescence.

the creosote flowering
at an hour
no one is watching.

the heat above the stone.
the sand
going soft
in one place
and not another.

this is the language
they knew
before they met.

this is the language
they will keep speaking
after.

no one taught it to them.
no one can take it.


the raven
was above him
before she knew him.

the raven
has always followed him.
has always followed her.

astral reciprocity.

they knew each other
in the hour
before they had faces.

when he leaves,
the signal does not.
the signal is older
than leaving.

the raven
is how it arrives.

the star
they are standing under
has already been gone
a thousand years.

they are still
standing under it.


he is leaving.
he was leaving
when she first saw him.
she chose it.


we arrive late.
the creosote was here.
the rimrock was here.
the mark in the sand
was here before we made it.

stay
stay

she does not say it.

parallax.

the sidewinder’s mark
is already blurring.
a raven above.
no blue yet.
the wind was always.

asteryne (n.) – coined. from the Greek aster (star), with the suffix -yne suggesting motion, essence, yearning. the state of being untethered by grief or longing and still reaching; unmoored in the vastness and pulled toward it. kin to saudade – the ache for someone or something that may not even be gone, only unreachable. the feeling of standing beneath a night sky that is both the wound and the solace. a word for those who grieve deeply and long fiercely. for those who believe the ones they love return to the stars, were always part of them, or are still here and still impossibly far.

– a word I made, for a feeling that had no word. 2025

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