The star flitted into her mouth. 

She tried to cough it out, but too late,

for the star had run down her throat 

tracing a thread of light

from her tongue to her stomach 

where it glinted through membrane,

skin and dress. When the doctor 

came, and warmed his stethoscope

in his palms, he listened 

to the light that fizzed in her gut.

“What do you hear, she said. 

“I can hear the Milky Way.

He’s crying for his mother. 

He needs a transfusion.

The girl climbed to the top 

of the hill, leaned back

on the evening grass, 

her arms and legs stretched out

to the tips of her fingers and toes 

and the star shone up to the sky

as the treetops, the anemones, 

the gentle stellar winds, breathed them in.