Woman Looking at the Stars
____by Danielle Kotaska

"I don't see anything at all," she says,
squinting through coats of mascara and
toying with perfectly set curls.
She reads the title again:
"Woman looking at the stars."
Her gaze shifts back to the painting
only to find an ocean of blue currents
broken up by white smears that
to her look a lot like squashed spiders.
"Woman looking at the stars?"
Frustration and anger solidify in her mind
like a clay statue grown stiff with time.
And yet, the void in her seems greater,
filling every fiber.
She thinks, "It is empty, there is nothing more to see."

Her eyes close.

The breath rolls out,
releasing the sterile scent of the museum's white-washed walls.
Then it glides back in
bringing with it pine, salt, and thyme...

Her eye opens.

The clay statue is broken,
pierced by a ray of starlight
that is strong but at the same time gentle
as it illuminates the smile that is spreading across her face.
The stars smile back,
as they turn pirouettes in a spry zodiac
that seems to change when she blinks.
The painter pushes a gust of wind through her blond curls
and spreads another coat of iridescent starlight on her face.
He studies her gaze with a sigh,
knowing everyone is a product of their own imagination.
But the myriad of colors is his ticket,
and the worn palette an engagement ring
slipped on the finger of humanity.
He is grateful for these gifts;
How else might he have known this woman
who is looking at the stars?