by Lizzie Alblas

We gaze up at soft embers
of Promethean fire.
Stars, you would say, matter-of-factly,
but in claiming them with our eyes
we have stolen from the gods.

I tend to elaborate, I know.

But though I know the details of this scene,
the tabby cat at our feet, the quiet croak of
amorous frogs, the slip of murmuring river,

it is my elaboration, this poem, that seeks to capture
what eyes and ears and mouths and hands cannot.
And though I don’t wish to overdo it –

to stand on Earth in a patch called ours
sharing this watercolour sky,
craning bent necks to Orion’s belt
or the Pleiades, those celestial sisters
singing to sailors and their ships –

to be here, blinking through your binoculars,
is what keeps me alive.

Lizzie Alblas | @LizzieAlblas | thingwithfeathers.home.blog
Lizzie Alblas is a poet and PhD student in Creative Writing at The University of Nottingham, currently developing a poetry collection centred around female figures in world mythology and folklore. Her work has appeared in the online magazine One Hand Clapping, Laced (which she also co-edited), Nottingham Poetry Exchange’s Voices, and in Whole, a zine created through collaborative workshops.