one is made of stars, of darkness and two a.m., the other rooted into the ground, thriving on the sun and hummingbird wings. they talk about ruling planets, about Mercury and Jupiter aligning, and he says he doesn’t believe in that sort of stuff but his calcium teeth tell him otherwise and when he cuts his hand he bleeds cosmos. the other feels like a satellite caught up in orbit, then knocked out of trajectory with transmissions lost, with static frequency. when they’re together it’s a kaleidoscope of technicolor, milky way tongues, they talk about being oceans away, and in August the Perseids will fall, they will shoot across the sky like bullets, fire bright, “but when I point at that star, you’re pointing at the same one” he tells him that is why stars are better than the green that grows out of the ground and he disagrees with him. “There are plants that grow towards each other no matter how separate they are,” and that is more remarkable than something dead looking down on them. expositions and highways, luggage carousels, and when he plants seeds in the ground he tries not to think of black holes but instead the roots that will grow in the dark and thrive because something has to exist in the darkness that is full of life.