Contributor: Sally Dunn

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Last night I saw
a flickering star
– a binary,
or a pulsating variable?
If a binary, what type?
A book or the Internet
could answer.

But why ask?
Why know?

I used to care about
knowing things –
this variety of tree,
that species of bird,
that exact type of seaweed.

I no longer
want to know
these neighbors
of mine.

So I swim with
nameless seaweed,
watch nameless birds
flit about nameless trees
all under billions of
nameless stars –

and try to forget
I ever had
a name.


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Sally Dunn’s poetry has appeared in 2River View, Rio Grande Review, The Perch and Straylight Literary Magazine. Her poetry won honorable mention in the Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest. She lives on Cape Cod.