Issue 20

Amy Forstadt

The day before Christmas I take my son

to the planetarium. “It’ll be fun,” I say.

Really, I want to escape

my new in-laws, their holiday

trimming cooking scrubbing belonging

to them only. So up and down

the Oregon hills we drive.

Alex, sulky and pale,

forehead on the window, staring at the gray

green pines lining the freeway, missing

his video games, his room, his father

maybe. I hum Christmas carols and it rains.

The planetarium has too much space

on this December 24th. It’s vast, all

echoes and wandering strangers

floating in that neither/nor before Christmas,

waiting for the show to start.

An old woman rests on a bench, nudging a stroller back

and forth, a scowling man carries a toddler close,

three adults walk in line, near but not

together. And Alex and me, on our own

like the old days

after my divorce but before I married Tom.

We enter the great theater with our small

but hearty crew of jettisoned explorers

and sit, coats rustling. I touch Alex’s hand.

He pulls it away. But later–

as we crane our heads backwards to see the ceiling

turn black and full of galaxies—he brings it to rest

on my sleeve. I touch his fingers,

those tiny travelers, warm and familiar.

I learn that we are all the center of our own universe.

Each of us certain we’re the middle

of everything. The space between

planets ever expanding, so we’re always leaving

and not leaving, steadfast in our orbit

and bound by our own gravity.

It’s dark when we leave. And snowing,

a sloppy, heavy, Portland kind of snow.

But Alex doesn’t care. He runs out into it.

“Look!” he says, pointing up into the dark

like he sees his name there. “Look, mom!”

I look. The curve of his cheek against the sky.

His eyelashes wet with stars.