Stellar residue

A faint red glow,
a retreating star…
it won’t escape.

It was, and so
it is and will remain
entangled in memory.

On the nerve-fed
retinal field
cones reach
like leaves for light
from the bottom of
the eye’s ocean.

A ghost star
no longer there
hangs in the sky,
the myth of the present
inscribed in a constellation.

Would you find fame
and be called a star?

Would you ever shift
away from their eyes?

Will you be long gone
by the time they name
your residue of light?