What Light Makes a Star? by Joanna C. Valente & Stephanie Valente

who i decide to take as a lover might
be one of life’s great mysteries –

listen lover, when you ask me if
there are spinning suns lodged in your throat

I’ll say no, because
there are pockets of galaxies in your eyes
glazed, threading through the lashes

when you ask me how to get there,
i’ll tell you that you’ll have to die to get there first

except you were already there and maybe
you were trying to show me how to get there

with all of your strange maps with no end
in sight & a compass that only points north

even though you know I hate the months
where there is no sun and not even our

entangled bodies could give us what
we need – once you told me of a planet

where you came from and I laughed saying
it did not exist but only now can I see

that I could never love anyone from earth,
that I could never love anyone who told me

there was no such thing as ghosts or aliens
or vampires or unicorns or absolute death,

because then there would be nothing
for me to love.

Joanna C. Valente and Stephanie Valente are sisters and poets who live in Brooklyn, New York and edit Yes, Poetry. Joanna is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015) Marys of the Sea (2016, ELJ Publications), and Xenos (2016, Agape Editions). Stephanie has published Hotel Ghost (Bottlecap Press, 2015) and has work included in or forthcoming from Danse Macabre, Nano Fiction, and Black Heart.