Never one to shy away from a contest, I began

collecting memorabilia from the old world.

I would build, in time, a verisimilitude for us

to enjoy. First, starlight, which I had found crying 

under a rock in the idea of a river. I hid her in a biscuit tin, 

barely the willpower of a tealight left in her.

Each day I fed her bitter herbs to strengthen her 

constitution, for starlight was most rare

to come by, and we needed her deeply for

our project to succeed. Next, I went in search

of a purple scarab. Rumour had it, they could 

be found nestled in the lithium fields not too far 

north of home. I walked for days until, in the middle 

of a panic, I happened upon a limp balloon sent

from a different future. A wet pop. Etched upon

its inmost skin, a love letter with instructions

on where to find her. A toothpick had been 

used to pin her to the sign of an old nightclub called Babylon,

where she’d been stuck now for some years.

I removed her carefully, as if handling the soft parts of a baby’s skull,

and placed her on our mantelpiece, where she rests. Finally, 

a font full of white hydrangea. But I could not find this on our earth, 

so I was forced to look inwards. There I saw an oil painting, and in it 

that same flower ebbing like a clutch of pale burning coals. I approached it, 

took a scalpel to the canvas, and reached inside, only to find a second painting. 

The one where two men are growing older, skin hanging in elegant 

pleats, and from their camping chairs you can just about make out

ursa minor fainting into another version of the sky, horrified at something below.