William Shatner beams into my living room,
and you are speaking through his clipped commands.

To understand unlikely likenesses, I search
the asymmetrical star on Kirk’s gold tunic,

the burl of his chest in the shimmery uniform.
I can’t explain this deja vu, the feeling of you

here, not here, all bones, a final cigarette
we shared. More than once, as kids

we caught the light of the security lamp

that hovered like a mothership,

threw rocks at an eclipse of moths
turned luminous against the glass.

We didn’t empathize with insects,
their navigation systems flawed, drawn

by light that mimics the moon’s distant body,
paper cut-outs dropping in the gravel—couldn’t

know the future forgeries we’d bear—
your cheating wife, my children’s suicidal father,

some genetic malady the doctors named too late
for us to care. As kids, we built fires

that charred the barrel we fed our family garbage.
Well into the night we worked the blaze

as sparks swirled higher and higher. We caught them
in our gloves and called them stars.