Tonight’s sky seems flat, it could be an expanse with no shape at all. Perception, they say, is everything. I step outside in the dark, see Venus and Jupiter, mistake them as stars. Why not? What mass can I assign to a paper-thin crescent glowing phantasmal yellow-white, or to its neighbors, bright, circular specks? Heavenly bodies we call them, as if knowing their figure: globe, sphere, some kind of body-at-all. Things change form and orientation to each other— like landscape and weather with seasons. So, too, the moon: harvest-time, slung heavy and low to horizon, a large orangey circle aglow. That very night it will alter itself, float higher up, shrink, become washed out and wan. And what we call phases! A month’s patience can follow a crescent to full-bellied and back. We apply theories— fundamental motion and spin, work instruments, measure angles, plot points to chart out the math— but what I see tonight, a sickle moon and two stars— look like phosphorous cutouts pasted to sky. ***