by Ethan McGuire

The stars spread through the night,
they only know we see them there,
pinpoints of light stuck through
a thick, black canvas stretched across
the Heavens, bold as day.
Intuiting we follow them,
stars burn their hottest flame.

Orion is my friend.
I seek him at my loneliest,
seek just to see his hunt
throughout the forests, shimmering.
I follow his bright belt
and know brave Sirius’s light
to run beside the Dog.

When troubles spill my soul,
the stars are my mute confidantes—
for words God understands
yet I wish no man else to hear—
with pitiful wood fires
of pine to kindle, oak to burn,
lit near my prostrate frame.

Perhaps I am a fool
to walk in comfort with the stars.
The night holds terrors still
which I fear little, because light
lies thrown upon my path.
God, even so, my hollow heart
fills only half the way.

Since stars know we see them
but they cannot see us—cannot
reach down to fill our hearts—
they are our lips-sealed confidantes,
because they have no tongues,
remaining gods without much voice,
but my soul longs for more.

Ethan McGuire is a writer and a healthcare cybersecurity professional whose essays, fiction, poetry, and reviews have appeared in Calla Press, The Dispatch, Emerald Coast Review, Foundling House, Literary Matters, The New Verse News, Time of Singing, and The University Bookman, among other publications. He lives with his wife and their daughter in the Florida Panhandle on the Gulf of Mexico.

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