POETRY: Star Turn, by Charles Wright

Nothing is quite as secretive as the way the stars
Take off their bandages and stare out
At the night,
that dark rehearsal hall,
And whisper their little songs,
The alpha and beta ones, the ones from the great fire.

Nothing is quite as gun shy,
the invalid, broken pieces
Drifting and rootless, rising and falling, forever
Deeper into the darkness.
Nightly they give us their dumb show, nightly they flash us
Their message and melody,
frost-sealed, our lidless companions.