I'm tired of hearing
About how we're all
Made of stardust

Stars, stars, stars
Like so many
Shakespearean sonnets

Maybe I want
The sliding plates of my wrist
To be made from the jawbone
Of a T-Rex

And the electrons in my brain
To have once sparked down
In a rainstorm
Over ancient China
The night the emperor died

And I wish I could go back
8 million years
To make sure that the charcoal
In your sketchbook
Is made from the roots
Of your favorite flowers
And press their petals
Into your chalk pastels

The steel second hand in the watch
Of the man in the elevator
Certainly isn't the dainty spun glass
Of a supernova
But rather the sliver of the sword
That my ancestor threw
At the feet of his
On the moors of Gaul
All those years ago
Its ancient ticking
Reminding me of debts unpaid
While the soles of his shoes
Are worked from the tar
That killed my wrist bones' sire
Eons past

We're not made of stardust,
We're made of each other,
Every atom accounted for
Between us
With nowhere to go
But on
And on
And on
Chasing each other through
Every metamorphosis
Until they've clashed and kissed
So many times
That we rip the cosmos in half
And catch fire in the debris

We're not made of stardust.
We're making it.

i want to know
what you've thought
the last five minutes
that made you
stack your papers
with the onomatopoeia
careful hands
sliding them tentative
aligned against the
seat of the seat
next to you
the clasp of the chain
unusually delicate
around your neck
rests on a vertebrae
rolls

Oh
Hello again
  2:24

I know we agreed
That it was for the best
If we got some space

But the streetlights are
            overbearing
And the clock is too loud;
It was inevitable that
            they would send me
Right back to you
Eventually

And I know that we,ve had our fun:
Poorly thought-out bike rides
and Korean televisio n

But the family,s around
            tonight babe
So I,ll grab my snuggie
            and you hold the phone
And we can blog from the ba-
             thtub ,til
4 am gets home.

                                 'Q

Just as there are no stupid questions,
I think,
There are no mundane uses
For the beautiful

Not the pomegranate,
Deseeded by virtue of patience,
Cold water,
And six months in hell,
Now sinking to the bottom
Of a bowl of Special K

Nor the holy grail,
Ceramic, stained well-loved
By infinite cups of coffee
(Blood of Christ,
These days)
Sitting wrong-side up
On a shelf of mugs
In the kitchen
Of a Buddhist

                                 'Q

                                 (10/24/12)