“Astriferous”

“Fishnets,” was all the scraggly, doddering woman said on Thursday night.

Her mouth twisted, slashed into a smile, the ridges of them

beginning to shrivel.

“Fishnets,” she’d said again and again and again,

whispering until even the silence had become annoyed

to such a point, it began

casting her voice back to her, to fill its absence.

For she mustn’t notice that it too had left.

“Fishnets,” drawled the midnight sky, turning in and in and in,

rolling head over heels, for all the people below.

A few more fishnets for Friday, Saturday,

and Sunday too.

Fishnets, until the meaning of the word had left her mouth

and all that remained

was the implantation of the letters on the soaking ridge of her tongue,

in the far back of the cavern, at the very apex of her throat.

In wake of her word, languages arose, like planets in the void, or

jutted landscapes on the Earth below.

Languages that the woman herself could not speak,

but somehow knew.

Like the bright blue plastic net within her hands,

which left behind slivers of parted skin and speckles of deep red ash.

“Fishnets,” cawed the woman Tuesday night, shambling

down to the cusp of the waterline,

ankles shuttering and clasped by the wind that breached them,

hands curled far too tight,

around the light dipped mesh.

Taunting the damp sand with the horizon of her toes, she stood,

a smirk blossoming across the field of her face.

She raised her arms, up and up and up,

cast the net over the illuminated casket in the sky,

ignored the shrieks of stars and lamentations of wind

and all the protests that were suddenly below her.

When the other side returned

she clasped it, pulled and pulled and pulled

until the moon had crumbled from the sky

and fallen to the lake below.

She continued on, trailing for a few more steps into the water,

pulled once more, again and again and again

dragged that beast upon a shore

stared on as the dollop began

to swallow the grains of sand on the bed below it.

She turned her head from side to side

admiring her works done. The sky twirled on,

the stars scratched and scratched.

The moon remained upon the shore,

swallowing sand, drawing it into its heaving chest,

tendrils of light fleeing from its edges,

scorning the distant sky.

The woman went to the moon wrapped in fishnet.

The newfound child placed her hand upon its forehead,

smiled, and spoke:

“It’s good to see you, old friend.

How about we speak again?”