Constelations

Constellations • Shauri Cherie

Modeled after Virgil Suarez's "Aguacero"

Those late hours lying on blankets in our

back lawn when the sky sparked with white

flashes, comets shooting through the night’s

hazy ink, crickets and the rustle of leaves

a soft backdrop to the stories my dad wove

while my eyes soaked in the sight of innumerable

stars forming the glinting constellations he

treated as old friends he’d known some lifetime before.

In the dark before me, I envisioned them,

Lepus chasing Lupus, Lynx, and Leo, narrowly

missing Sagittarius and Orion as they compared

their bows at the feet of Cassiopeia and Cepheus,

Andromeda poised on her father’s right side—

then a cat’s yowl sliced the crisp midnight air.