Sex Education

First I find your hip & then
the canopy opens above me
deciduous & sweet. Somewhere
in the dark, a telescope sharpens
its eye on the lip of the big
dipper & the ranger behind it
is a soundless shadow, a blur
adjusting the traffic of arms 
aimed at the sky. I don’t try
to make out his instructions; 
Polaris has never been a myth
to me. O horizon in my hair
& canteen as my pillow, I slip
the sky’s soft pulse out 
of focus. An orb weaver strings 
the campfire’s smolder
between branches of sycamore, 
a new canon of constellations
ambered in air. I trace them 
with my eyes—curve & bow 
& hilt—then with my hands: over 
my body, then over yours. 

—

Deaf, genderqueer poet Meg Day is the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award. A recipient of the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship and an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, Day’s recent work can be found in Best American Poetry 2020 & The New York Times. Day is Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing at Franklin & Marshall College. www.megday.com