I wanted to take another stab at this poem I wrote last spring, when I’d just met the man who became my boyfriend.

“I WAS TRYING TO DESCRIBE YOU TO SOMEONE” 

(Inspired by a poem of the same name by Richard Brautigan)

I was trying to describe you to someone and I got to talking about last summer

when my brother and his wife and I drove out to West Texas

To the McDonald Observatory.

The astronomers (Mostly grad students)

had set up these huge telescopes

pointed at whatever was brightest that night.

We took turns looking—
one eye closed, breath held—

as if the universe might move
if we didn’t stay still enough.

We probably looked through a dozen telescopes,

I’ve since forgotten all of the star formations, save for the Cat’s Eye Nebula. 

It was blue.

Maybe like the faded teal walls at Tigress that you insisted were like something out of a movie, 

or maybe like the ocean on old globes

where Rhodesia is still a country. 

To me, it was blue like Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber and

that particular promise of choosing hope.

When I saw it, I felt unsteady.

Like if someone touched my back
I might tip forward

or maybe I’d say something embarrassing.

“It’s real pretty, right?” the astronomer running that telescope asked me. 

And I said, 

“yeah.” 

But pretty falls short.

It made me feel small in a way that felt safe,

like being held by something enormous

that wasn’t trying to own me. & I thought:

If there isn’t a god,
then whoever made this
was thinking like an artist—
willing to spend centuries
on something that might never be seen.

Like something made by someone
who wasn’t in a hurry.

I felt like everyone in the world should see the Cat’s Eye Nebula

and think about how much energy we waste

on cruelty, on power, on being right.

and how small it all looks
from far enough away.

Anyway,
that’s what it feels like
to stand next to you.