At Best

A keogram strikingly
Like an hourglass shows the year
As a series of whole-sky

Photographs spliced together,
Short nights of summer the waist,
The winters fluting open

At the full nights’ bust and hips,
The sequences of the moon
A dozen oblique white stripes

Through all nights, like a design
Patterning a printed dress.
Where it tends to be cloudy,

Your keogram will feature
A slightly silvery sheen,
But deserts frame you in blue,

With maybe even the dark,
Moonless stripes of your cyclic
Dress faintly star-crossed at best.