This year the sky
in Paris is interpreted
with horror, horse, and stethoscope.
In April, they say:
love conquers all. In May,
when Venus is in sextile to Neptune,
your lover wishes for a break-
through; or a semi-break,
if a meteorite interrupts
the Saturn’s orbit, like a heart
unsettling the stethoscope can’t mend.

So contented to be charmed,
the horse bathes
in the cabochon jade,
making sure that the grass
is an illusion. This will happen
in December—
it means self-deception, or inspiration.
People wear love
and hatred on the seventh day
of the seventh
lunar month, when Zhinü and Niulang,
separated for three hundred
and sixty four days, reunite
over the star Deneb. It is destiny.
Once in every year. The diamond dial,
so promising, brags about the hope.