Celestial Confessions
by Hannah Hall
She painted her wall with thick black chalkboard paint
the summer before high school and confessed 1 Corinthians 13: 4 -13
Love is patient, love is kind…
on the empty plane.
We rested on our backs in stargazer’s position
(arms at 45-degree angles behind our heads and legs sprawled out in front)
and looked up at the wall like gazing into the night alpine sky –
our eyes would relax and focus on nothing in particular,
and in every second of adjustment more stars and planets would colonize
the crisp air until a universe appeared, invisible to the day eye –
Maybe she was a stargazer with him to ignore how he
defied everything love was supposed to be,
and when she tried to hide behind the darkness of her eyelids
adjustment must have prevailed, intensifying the four bedroom lights.
How small her room would have felt,
the cursive love is lassoed off the wall and wrapped
around her wrists, pulling her arms back into
a position only meant for viewing celestial bodies.
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