He took [Abraham] outside and said, “Look up at the heavens
and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.”
Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” — Genesis 15:5
After Abraham fell asleep,
she pulled her cloak
around her shoulders
and walked out to stare
at the night. Stars collected
in the crevices of mountains.
They spilled into the oak groves
and clung to the branches.
And when she spread her hands
to the sky, they rested in the sags
of flesh between her fingers.
The world is dripping with stars,
she thought, and still not one
belongs to me. She considered
hating them. She considered
wishing a heavenly storm
to drown them. But she only
murmured I am through
and walked off, holding
a sudden sharpness in her side,
as if a star had dislodged
there and, turning and scraping
and shining its path, settled
into the bare sky of her body.
