after Maggie Smith

The charcoal was in burning so the food 
was raw. Sky ready. You were snacking on 
halloumi, taking pictures of your ex 

as she spun in a long green dress. No one 
has ever bent back in the grass before 
me like that, laughing with an audience 

of gnats, and a dog who plunged into the 
marsh, hunting a bird who’d forgotten how 
to fly. That night, I pulled a sheet around 

my body and realized that my tee- 
shirt mapped a constellation of stars, 
that cloth territory could glow in the dark.