Northern Cross

by Warren Hatch

Teach me the Northern Cross, you say, kneeling,

and I touch collarbone on each side of your neck
and following my fingers you turn, mapping galaxy
with the curve of bones. Find the milky Way first;
face west, and spread your arms north and south,
I say. You breathe deep once and your neck arches,
your head then in the crook of my arm, east, here
in August and after midnight. Then, this is Deneb,
and this is Altair, mapping those blue-white stars
to the softness and awakening hardness of flesh.
These stars of Cygnus and Aquila, swan flying
after eagle, south and west. Follow my hand;
trace their spreading wings, the chill dewfall,
arc of swan's neck along ribs and medial line;
you know the stories of swans. And this Vega.
Your spine arcs. Oh, you say, rising to the star,
another eagle swooping in Lyra, faint trapezoid
like one knee bending away from the other. Oh.
You see we will have a daughter who will watch
an eagle hunt, stoop, devour prey. Oh, she says;
you see the cross, have always known your way
among these stars at the top of summer sky,
the great hunting birds, their stories bone-
deep and white in the arc of pelvis.