My superior’s superior
achieved many firsts.
Her white office glowed
like an unknowable planet.
In five years, I want to be her,
I said about my future.

The sun never set in her world.
There were only challenges,
never failures. She called
poems insights, and counted
the minutes as though
she owned them.

She was just thought-provoking enough.
She echoed other people
then asked, How do we measure?
Rosanna #1 thanked her
for the question. Rosanna #2
bobbed like a chicken.

At home, I wash my face off.
My lover’s back forms a mountain
and beyond him, the sky.
How do we measure?
I’d spent my life searching.
I look up in perfect silence at the stars.