Woman Lost While Looking at Stars

By Dawn Angelicca Barcelona

You are a child of the universe no less than the
trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
— Max Ehrmann, “Desiderata”

Three-thousand miles away from home,
a woman counts the stars in Badwater Basin.

*

My mother warned me not to look up too quickly,
the sun will bite, your neck might snap. She says don’t answer
the door for anyone and this refrain pours onward,
until my eyes are covered with stars.

*

If this night went missing, along with this woman,
could park rangers resurface both with one helicopter?

*

My mother held my tongue taut
when I was ready to taste the moon.
She asks if I’ll come home by midnight,
as if I could go far. Many fears are born
of fatigue and loneliness. This is why I go.

*

I lick my thumb and press
the sky with my fingerprint,
thinking of girls who don’t answer,
whose mothers leave voicemails.

*

Somewhere in Death Valley,
a woman sits by a window
so she can watch her daughter.

* 

When I come home,
I’ll tuck away my stars.

---

Dawn Angelicca Barcelona is a Filipina-American poet originally from New Jersey. She was awarded the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Literary Award in 2022 and Epiphany's Fresh Voices Fellowship in 2023. She is an alumna of The Fulbright Program, Community of Writers at Olympic Valley, VONA, and Kearny Street Workshop's Interdisciplinary Writers Lab.