It's Still Life

Naming the Unclaimed

Wolf moon.
Orion’s Belt.
Sirius, bold and low.

She stands beneath them,
wrapped in night’s blanket,
its hem dusted with memory.

Each star is a name she mouths
like a lullaby,
like a story left unfinished.

Children she never bore,
their light traveling years
to reach her upturned face.

Jupiter.
Pollux.
Canopus.

She counts them slowly—
not to possess,
but to belong.

The city once swallowed her sky,
softened it into blur,
but here the heavens open
like arms that never ask
why she has no one
to call her mother.

Still she names them.
Rigel.
Altair.
Spica.

They do not correct her.

They only shine,
patient as breath,
waiting
to be counted,
to be chosen,

to hear their names spoken
by a voice that knows
what it means
to go unclaimed.

🜃