By stringing together beads
of wild-born color, shape, texture
we make jewelry to ornament
our naked bodies, as builders
bind stones into walls, arches
under which people can gather,
dressing and undressing themselves
with space they claim to own
for a time, like dinner parties
coming out of nowhere
with so many drawn there
in trappings that mock
up formality as shared memory—
stories, pictures of engagements
worth framing by carving edges—
dates: constellations in the making.