The stars seem to be swirling out of a van Gogh painting,
twinkling now and then like enchanted girls in frames
which hang in the study of most men’s minds.

I notice one of them is moving, leaving
a trail of red winks; I imagine someone’s dreaming
on this plane, her head leaning against her husband’s shoulder,

re-living her girlhood, mothering a cheap doll,
so high – ten kilometers maybe – above me in the sky
that I can hide her and her husband

behind my ring finger.
I try to guess how long it’ll take her
to remember she’s married and on a plane,

gliding through the night sky of a van Gogh painting
when she wakes up with a stiff neck
and finds a man slobbering next to her.