Vulpecula (et Anser)
by James Owens
The sly young vixen of lights
sat grooming her chops,
sleek and replete
after centuries of chase.
We looked at the stars
and said nothing,
all lines having been exhausted.
It was a time of things ending.
You could have voiced the mood:
"Entropy must be ticking
toward an end in all things
when the constellations attain their prey."
Would it have mattered?
Something huge and dark
shifted in the sky,
settled around us.
And still, a lost honking
ghosts a thousand yellowed star charts.
Copyright © 2003, James H. Owens
Vulpecula et Anser, the Fox and Goose
by Johannes Hevelius
James Owens lives in La Porte, Indiana. Some of his recent poems and essays have appeared in The Pedestal Magazine, Adirondack Review, Now & Then, Wind, and others. Black Lawrence Press will publish his first full-length collection of poems in 2004, and he was the editor of The Sow's Ear Poetry Review from 2000 to 2003. When he isn't busy with one of several types of marginal employment on the fringes of academia, he stares into the mystery of Lake Michigan for hours at a time.