To Shower Under the Stars

You step outside at night, little shapes hopping out of the way of rocks made smooth.

Frogs around the hose.

Cold water on your head, the Wyoming wind nipping.

Grass rustles a drone orchestra.

Moths flash in the corner of your eye like haunting fairies.

Every month it seems more of our light pollutes the sky, blocking them out.

We have to go home.

There are many things I forgot, ways of breathing and standing, that I didn’t remember.

For more than a decade, until I went back to the equator.

Back to where I was grown.

What will we remember, when we finally sail amidst the stars again?