Sky Grief
Arizona and the Black Canyon
of the Gunnison hold the Milky Way
of my youth—gas and dust spiral,
stars and planets in the billions
invisible to eighty percent of Americans
who’ll never see nocturnal lesser
long-nosed bats locate an Organ Pipe
Cactus when it vibrates and releases
musk from nighttime blooms
produced in its thirty-fifth year.
Safe from fine-tooth spines, Chiroptera dip
faces, and tongues longer than their pollen-
covered bodies into blossoms, lapping up
nectar like kittens—or a girl drinking in
a swath of starry milk after hand-like wings
of the only animal capable of flight
grazed her face while she slept outside
in a sleeping bag in Colorado.
