Proper Motion

Proper Motion

The things we count on not to move
have always been moving.

The fallen tree was once young,
grown from the dropped

maple key of an elder tree, a hillside
or two up. The stars we use

to navigate are not welded to the dark
wall of space, they twist

and sway, Edison bulbs dangling near
a ceiling fan. The patch

of ocean you once stood in, you will
never find it again, and

jutting from the street like silver
stitches, one block’s

worth of trolley rail, trolleys gone
for eighty years now.