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Grab a handful of stars, rip them
from their constellations
like tearing pages from books -
Read your own destiny
as these stars interact in your hands,
playing out your astrology
in miniature
Hold them long enough
for them to burn you -
connect the burn marks like dots
& read their rearranged mythologies
on your palm
Your skin is not much different
from the cosmos it holds -
made of atoms, little planets spinning
in search of suns to warm them
Confuse them,
make the planets fight for the few suns
you are holding -
or make them cooperate,
arrange themselves into solar systems
prepared to share a single star
Feel the buzzing in your palm
as electrons bond licentiously
in the beginnings
of a new sky you can chart
your horoscope on
But don't rely entirely on the heavens -
they can disappoint you
& are populated with ghosts
whose light we still see
only because they are so far away
Consult your life line that cradles
all of this creation
in its wrinkled valley -
Demand that the constellations
forming in your hand
tell the same story as the lines
on your palm
so you won't spend your life
wondering which one
is superstition
BIO: Jalina Mhyana is co-editor of
Rock Salt Plum poetry
Review. Her chapbook Spikeseed is forthcoming
from Bad Moon Books in January. Jalina's poetry has been
published, or will be published, in Room of One's Own, Japanophile
Press, Slow Trains, Erosha, Eclectica, Moxie Magazine, Peshekee River
Poetry, Verse Libre Quarterly, Spitjaw Review, Salt River Review,
Branches Quarterly, among others. She has lived in northern Japan
for the past six years, where she has owned and operated an American
massage therapy college and massage practice. Jalina can be contacted at
editors@rocksaltplum.com
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by Jalina Mhyana