Stars or Stories

The trouble with perspective—
Not only is it wobbly,
Sliding around like a loose
Ring on an old curtain rod,

But it’s the whole contraption
Falling on your head at once,
The velvety drapes of night
And the choking dust of day.

Your life is little and huge
All at once, barely a blink,
A glimpse, and voluminous
Memories that consume you,

Too many, too repeated,
All the nights piling on you
Stitched with your pinpoint stories
Planted in them as moth eggs

To hatch and gnaw away cloth
Until you don’t and can’t know
What was the you you dreamed lived,
What was stitching, what torn holes.