Hesperus

My four-year-old daughter handed me a card. To Daddy written on the front and inside a rough field of  five-pointed lights, and the words You’re my favorite Daddy in the stars. In this western night we all light the sky like Vega, Deneb, Altair, Albireo, the Summer Triangle, Cygnus the Swan, our hair tangled with wood and gravel, our eyes like vacant docks that beckon every boat. Tell me about the word stars, I said. Oh, she said. Sorry. I didn’t know how to spell world.