This poem is published in the Grist.

 

The Constellations Lost.  

The nights in question were all whiskeymouthed as if the world knew the words but lacked the lips to speak out on what I watched my neighbor do. On the other side of the fence, in his backyard, he sat on a lawn chair wearing a bathrobe and slowly reeled-in stars with some kind of machine. Once removed from their belted place, he wrapped them in wax paper and put each in a jar which was then promptly buried. He did this all night.

I forgot to mention that his wife had left him the year before over something the neighborhood collectively referred to as a “failure to suffice.” Maybe that’s why I didn’t do anything at first. I guess I just felt sorry for the guy. And I wanted to see what would happen.

By the end of the summer, the sky was scattershot with just a handful of stars. Churchgoers feared the long-awaited apocalypse. Astronomers were baffled. Stars had never been known to hide. It seemed a strange time for them to start. Finally, with Orion missing, I decided to turn my neighbor in. You can’t use pity as an excuse forever.

The police came and he was arrested for cosmic vandalism. A chain gang in yellow hazmat suits was brought in to exhume. But inside each jar, they found only ash—the littered skeletons of snuffed stars. Scientists said they couldn’t be replaced.

The police took my statement and charged me with criminal negligence. I was sentenced to a lifetime of community service. The neighborhood agreed: these things happen. And so, every night, I lead an army of equal offenders through town with flashlights, making up for the constellations lost.