We burn love wherever we find it,
smother darkness from the hungry stage.
Our wonder is a shadow; our slumber, a bear—
Ursa’s Minor chord without her Major lift.
Yes, I know! our mission was to be the dimmest
workers of the newest empire, both the records
carried and needles pressed upon the gold façade,
but we’re never together, wherever we go.
So I Fosse, darling! I glitter! I beard!
My fingers shake to see you see me,
to wish you to wish upon me, ‘cause out here
I’m a star, darling, a real ringer, a singer singing true
and this time the joke’s on me, not you.
Because what’s a body if not a performance
of letters dressed in human sequin and spark.
Our lives are just cabarets where fat gathers
on milk’s surface like skin waiting to be broken.
Maybe someday we’ll be lucky, shag upon
the same carpet, candle light in the same living room.
You’ll hover above your piano, commercial as a starling
pinned on sky sprawled wires between the moon
and some new alien city. I’ll watch your back curve,
your shirt undo, the drink beside you empty
to closeted darkness. The best that you can do
is rile my feathers, cut my hair. I part my lips
and the whole sky falls out: a 5, 6, 7, 8.
This is one of two poems by Jessica Rae Bergamino. Click to Read "Feeling Underappreciated, Voyager Two Imagines Herself as Miss Piggy."