Why I Wanted To Be An Astronomer
It was not a telescope, or a book
with diagrams of the solar system.
It was not the romance of the stars,
which I only knew from television.
It was the streetlights. I was a boy
in the Bronx, and the streetlights
were a kind of enemy, a kind of
pollution. They were always on,
a yellowish wash over everything,
blurring the edges of the night.
I wanted to be an astronomer, so
I could turn them off. Not all of
them, just the ones between my eyes
and the sky, especially the one right
outside my bedroom window.
I imagined a switch, a master switch,
that would cut the city's yellow glare,
and in that sudden dark, the stars
would rush in, like a crowd in an
empty room. I wanted to find a light
that was not a streetlight, that was
not a porch light, that was so far away
it could not be turned off. I wanted to
know the universe like the back of my
hand. I did not become an astronomer.
I wasn't good enough at math. I became
a poet, and I came to know the universe
of the back of my hand.
