THE CONFUSION OF STARS

by CAROLYN CHEN

People orbit one another in a model world, carrying lights that blink in silence at different rates. Each one revolves internally while circling a slower blinker. Moons circle planets, planets circle stars. Stars might wander.

 Circling without tools, words, or outside light, but making a way slowly through the dark, which is broken, periodically, by moving points. With metronomes or other objects that emit regular pulses of light.

2008