From light years away,
stars crowd the Altiplano sky.

Inside the bus, careening
through green lights, we are bumper cars:

            the gnarled man in the ball cap, bouncing, eyes closed,
crumpled grocery bag clenched in his lap,

            the girl with long wet hair, rocking in her single seat, 
a book too close to her face, crying,

            and the thick man in the white-white long-sleeve shirt,
radiating garlic and cooking oil, one hand
tight to a seat frame as he stands,

            the plaid-suited woman and I sharing a pole,
pressed together like lovers rounding a curve,
holding a look as a businessman, unseen,
shames a subordinate on his phone.

Sometimes, we lack the space to stay inviolate.

I expect the hygienist to chat, in a dentist’s chair,
to work her sharpened tools inside my mouth.
I come prepared to reel my spirit in,
to reset my boundaries.

But distance in all things may be fiction.

Even withdrawing to a night,
lying on my back in silence, years before,
three-miles high on the Altiplano, undone
by stars alone,                                                                                                          

stars in such disquieting number,
constellations there are named
for motes of dark between,

stars and jumbled stars, each demanding,
drumming their light; ‘myriad’
and ‘multitude’ inadequate words
to defend against them.

Stars so dense,
they press you to the ground
and pour through you.

– Joseph Hardy