“What I am writing to you goes on and I am bewitched.”

 – Clarice Lispector, Agua Viva



1.

Neptune’s clouds have vanished. So distant

from the Sun, high noon
is a dim twilight. Yet waning solar flares
            have travelled through deep space

            to reach this distant child

                        and empty   
                        Neptune’s sky. We pierced

our planet’s membrane, sifted 
interplanetary dust 
just to watch this god

become exposed.  
                        The images are grainy but we can see

                        a giant stripped of cloth
tempting       moons

into its orbit. 
Parent planet. Captured

moon.



2.

On Earth, I read Lispector, who wrote

of blackened fruit and hope 
            that she could touch us. 
            She takes me to Recife

where we trap moths in tissue paper,

                        careful not to shed their dust. 
Her flame exists in oil

            lamps, bewitching 
            wayward mayflies. 
Clarice died in Rio

after publishing The Hour of the Star.
She said I sometimes flicker

            within all this

            distance.



3.

            Neptune is slowly drifting,

                        blue and naked
            without its missing clouds. 
A planet whipped

            by supersonic winds, 
where seasons stay for forty years.

Radio waves crackle 
            when slathered in dark matter.

                        A dead star

            is still a star.  
            Your solar flares

are waning.
Still, I hear your voice.