Stella

Someone I care about very much once told me that she liked it better when poems used "she" or "her" instead of "you". Somehow, she could never believe that she could be the person referred to when someone used "you," and could easily imagine the poem was about her when it used the other pronouns.

Stella

This is for her,

so she might look up

into the night sky of this poem

and imagine her name

spelled out above its horizon.

The letters become stars,

making constellations of pronouns;

a celestial game of connect-the-dots.

This is for her,

a tiny rocket of words

with just enough escape velocity

to bring her beyond

the second star to the right

and straight on to my world.

This is for her,

so she might hear her name

whispered in the song of the universe.

It chimes softly each time a star twinkles

in the collection of pronouns

this poem has written for her

across its endless white sky.