Stephanie Burt – After Callimachus

When I began writing I felt like a constellation,
                                some new fixture in the sky,
a lamp with twenty wicks, or at least
                                an eternal flame. It was mostly a lie
I told myself, though a few
                                of my friends bought in. Now
look at me. I am, at best,
                                a little candle under glass,
a strip of magnesium you might
                                ignite for a demonstration in chemistry class,
or else a meteorite, fast
                                becoming invisible, something you’d point out
to a child, a faint
                                thing everyone knows can’t last.