Uncelebrated

“They have names,”
I wanted to say to him
—as though he were my child,
as though he were my own and new,
as though I had to tell him such things
and he would have been captivated
by the sweetness of my ageless knowledge.
“They have names,” I nearly said,
and once spoken they would seem
closer to us as if naming were nets
that gathered the stars in,
slipping and writhing in our arms.
My gift to him
—the anointment of celestial nomenclature—
shared between him and I,
if I had spoken.