No One Has Asked Me to Find Rigel Since Fifth Grade by Anonymous

As a child I learned of the speckled night sky, in a sprawling elementary school, equipped with dark room, projector, and maps of on high. Once a month we filed into the little planetarium. In classes of thirty we would sit under the dome, pound our feet on the bench back, and look up at the stars while the teachers would tell stories and name them. We were told that a star is a great fiery orb, a furnace island in a frigid sea. The teachers raised their voices to make heard Greek legends over childish whispers and kicking’s reverb. Last week, on the way to meet friends in town, I parked far from the center’s bright shops yet saw only Orion and Cepheus, dim on blue velvet. I walked until the vapors of my frozen breath dissolved in the radiant heat of restaurants and people, looked up to a empty firmament, then back down.