The miracle cannot be separated from the mess.
—Teddy Macker, “Christmas Morning”
Every time I connect the dots
I get it wrong. It never turns out
to be an image of a tree or a cat
or a happy woman. Always a mess,
lines scratched and scrabbled
and crisscrossed. And always
I wonder if someone else could
get it right? Could make a coherent
picture by connecting the facts instead
of this jumbled thatch of misdrawn
links and errant nexuses.
Oh this strange longing to get
it right. This urge to make sense
of separate points. There are nights
I stand beneath the moonless sky
and realize I don’t know how
to constellate the stars in the ancient ways.
And instead of trying to draw
the lines, I simply look at the stars
and notice how beautiful they are,
how unfathomable the space
that holds them, that holds
the woman staring at the stars,
holds even her longing to get it right.
