70 Thousand Million Million Million

70 Thousand Million Million Million

More stars in the sky
than grains of sand on every
beach, added together, even
the wet sand, even the granules
in the fibers on the floor of your
car, even the bits you rinse
from your legs, later, down
the pipes in your house. Those
count. The beach above us,
stars for sand, space for water.
Is the sky the sky to itself.
In emptiness, what looks
empty. Below, we keep filling
our cities. The fuller the land,
the fewer the stars.