Diana Donovan
Perhaps we mortals are doomed to get it wrong every time. We weave ancient myths into modern tapestries, mix up the stories. Exhibit A: the stars in Orion’s Belt don’t even blink when they brush past us on Flatbush Avenue: Zeta, who calls herself Z, Epsilon, who goes by Esa, and Delta, who’s been Deedee since kindergarten. See, we can’t even get their names right as they walk arm-in-arm to get jerk chicken, tossing their braids, cracking their gum—indifferent to Greek hunters, the underworld, the fact that they were worshipped in ancient Egypt. Bright stars render the dimmer ones almost invisible, radiate back twice what they absorb—pure firelight—unaware of black holes or the gravity of gravity, such grace in their disregard for the rest of us, everything coming toward them at light speed.
#
A graduate of Brown University, I am a marketing consultant based in Mill Valley, California. My work has been published by Cloudbank, Pacific Review, Levee, Panoply, Not Very Quiet, and Plainsongs. I’ve participated in Quiet Lightning—San Francisco’s literary mixtape—four times, a mix of memoir and poetry.
