Star Gazing, Lone Pine Airport
We lay on the tarmac
Under stars
The heat of the day
Rises to our spines
It could just as well
Be earth's passions
Warming us
The cumulative knuckle grind
Of orbs through space
If my tongue taps
the top of my mouth
I touch too
The zenith of this firmament
Brindled with indigo and black
The big dipper --
What moments of quenching
Could it offer?--
Droplets ablaze
Fall from its rim
To the desert
Place knowledge of dust,
Moisture
In our nostrils
Vilma, Joy, Jennie,
Read star maps
Hold flashlights wrapped
In red
Our figures on the asphalt
Mimic goddesses on the map
Radiant elbows
Radiant third eyes
Radiant ankle bones
We rise up to find
Our sisters in the sky
Touch their Magellanic hems
Laura Stickney
Laura Stickney is a visual artist and poet. Her etchings and artist's books are exhibited locally and nationally. She has published poems in WEST / WORD, Saturday Afternoon Journal, and was a finalist in the MTA Metro Art Bookmark Project. She teaches printmaking, bookmaking, drawing and painting to children and adults at the Junior Arts Center in Barnsdall Art Park in Hollywood.