Almost Enough to Navigate By, by Melanie Figg

The Astronomer, by Johannes Vermeer (Netherlands), 1668.

Almost Enough to Navigate By

He reaches out gently
to touch the surface of the universe--
round as it is. The late afternoon
sun presses through the leaded glass
dividing itself around the books,
tapestries, his map of the heavens.
His globe has the constellations’ storybook 
bodies adhered to the night. He measures
a theory with his thumb and forefinger--
his hand arced as if cupping his lover’s breast.
He has often thought of her body 
as a map he was unable to read, the reason
why she left. The freckles on her shoulder almost 
Orion’s Belt. The memory of her 
embrace, the distance between stars.

Melanie Figg

Melanie Figg is a 2017 NEA Poetry Fellow. Her chapbook, Hurry, Love, was printed in standard and fine art editions with paper artist Doug Abbott (Fuori Editions). She has won many awards for her poetry including grants from the McKnight and Jerome Foundations and the Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County. With an MFA in Poetry, her poems, essays and reviews have been published in dozens of literary journals including The Iowa Review, LIT, Colorado Review and others. She curates Literary Art Tours in DC galleries (aWashington Post Editor’s Pick), and teaches and coaches writers in community art centers and privately. www.melaniefigg.net