Author’s Note: I learned of the discovery of this exoplanet in the newspaper. What intrigued me was the discussion of the parent star lodged in the constellation Cancer and the “subtle tugs” on that star, suggesting the presence of another planet. It was not unlike the pull of someone close to me who had died several years before, the detritus of the loss and the challenge of trying to move on.
Eyes of the Crab
55 Cancri d, star in the constellation Cancer,
dragging five sibling planets,
bathed in watery clouds.
We are only two, running in the starry dark,
away from the cancer house
where we sat up with our mother, talking,
talking until she dozed off from the morphine.
Rocks fall to earth. Celestial disruption.
Stones placed on a headstone.
Two sibling planets, skittering backwards,
trying to recover, trying to align.
This poem was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Maryland writer Ann LoLordo’s poetry has appeared in Southern Poetry Review, The MacGuffin, The Greensboro Review, Puerto del Sol, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, as well as Delmarva Review. She is a former journalist who now works for a global health nonprofit organization as a writer, editor, and communications director.
Delmarva Review is an independent literary journal publishing the best of new prose and poetry selected from thousands of submissions nationwide, and beyond. The thirteenth annual edition was released this month. Partial financial support comes from individual contributions and a grant from the Talbot County Arts Council with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. The review is available worldwide from Amazon.com and from specialty booksellers like Mystery Loves Company, in Oxford. See the website: www.DelmarvaReview.org.
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