Along the Ecliptic

There are stories that read like a straight
line: A to B to C to The End; and others

in which either everything happens or nothing
happens, meaning epiphany is elusive or we 

are stubborn— we insist that significance 
is the only way we could justify existence. 

Tonight is the night of a large planetary 
parade, the evening alignment of six planets 

along the ecliptic. It's tempting to think 
this is magical or ominous or fortuitous, 

but science merely says these events can happen 
every hundred years or so. A neighbor who never 

smoked a day in her life dies from lung cancer,
and a wife-beater winds up mayor of his town.

What is the plot in such stories and where 
does the tension come to a head? Does it ever

resolve? In myths we're trained to anticipate
how irresolvable dilemmas are turned into

figures on the landscape or in the sky—
A girl in danger turns into a tree, another

becomes the orb-webber who will eternally  
hang by her own thread. Certain gods, if you 

believe in them, uphold their idea of order
in the cosmos. Who do you pray to at night?