CONSIDER THE MESS OF STARS

Like a legion of ghosts, I swear I can taste them

                                                                                some nights: the burn & tickle & fade. 

What does prayer do, if not call the dead back to us? 

Most days, I treat the dead poorly. I hide from them 

                            in orange groves, rotted oranges at my feet. I have no choice

but to eat. I have never been the sow, heavy-bellied, 

                                                      grazing over grasses in a field. I have never been the field,

                     grazing the horizon. I have never been

older than I am at this minute, or more

                                                                    alive. When you lose a parent, people pity you.

When you lose a child, people avoid you like the spring 

                                        freeze that comes to kill anything that grows wild. 

Let me be clear: living isn’t the question. 

                                                                                  The wings of the mosquitoes fall to rest

in the dirt. With rain & the remains of a heaven 

                                                       that has been hollowed of prayer. 

What is the desire to live, if not a desire for failure? 

                            In the groves tonight, the stars are so clear.

                                                                                                 A horn sounds on the highway. 

The endless wind stirs the dirt. In my mouth:

                                                                                  the mosquitoes, their wings. A father.

                                                                                  A mother-in-law. A daughter.

Strangers who were once friends. 

                                                                   The mingle of stars, oblivious, & already gone. 

Chelsea Dingman was born in Revelstoke, British Columbia and later raised in Edmonton, Alberta. She is currently a Visiting Instructor at the University of South Florida, teaching Poetry and Professional Writing. Her poems are forthcoming in such journals as the Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, and The Indiana Review. She is the author of Thaw, chosen by Allison Joseph to win the National Poetry Series (2016). Her chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved, is forthcoming from Madhouse Press (2018).