3.36 found my eyes open
Alone in a bed, a drought amidst
Cracking thunder and abusive rain.
My farflung thoughts dodged droplets
As they struggled to reach you.
You were dancing with Jupiter,
Quickstepping through asteroids and waltzing over elden craters
Creasing the face of our peaceful watcher of the night.
As you passed by, I
Reached for you, attempting to defy the tethers at my feet.
I glanced down at them--realized they looked like hands;
Hands I knew held me from you as if
You were some toxic drug and they were doing so
"For your own good," like they would know
What good you could do for me.
Can they not feel my desert heart
Nor see rain forest eyes?

You were scheduled to return yesterday,
Then today, then hope slipped from my scope
Pointed to the stars, searching for your
Blazing trail of fire. The sky is dark.
Still I say my prayers
That, in your brilliance and splendor returning,
The pyre consumes you not.

We have ventured from the start
and lost sight and broken apart, but
there is a way to live without
hearing heartbeats as ticking clocks
shouting of times past;
we sat side by side through every class
and we’re not done learning. Our
gravestones are jettisoned from the shuttle,
floating there goes gravity but
even shadowed from the sun by so much,
we clutch at moons to make our own light
on our own planet. We
could keep going now,
could stop each other from falling
and keep marking our heights
against the wall even though
they stopped changing long ago
because we didn’t
and instead of accumulating
the weight of years and days
we could find a way to keep getting lighter
the farther we get from the beginning
we are finite
but there went gravity
cause of death: life

I’ve learned that in the morning
light is liquid, flowing golden,
and I’ve learned that in the ocean
every motion turns to fluid,
and fish glide, learn how birds fly,
and their eyes are always open.

I’ve learned that if you stand
in the belfry when the bells ring
you can hear them in your heart
like when she calls you and the phone sings.
And I’ve learned that when you’re hoping,
light is lighter, clearer, brighter
and I’ve heard that you can see it
with eyes open

We are done trying to piece
our hearts back together
with glass and glue each time
they shatter
because there is only so much
blood one can lose
and we are strong enough each
to reach for ourselves again and we
are strong enough to be friends
and to look at the sky and to know
that there is no race to fill up
all that space

The ring around the rosy has
stopped spinning.
The dizzy blurs sharpen each blade
of grass into a wit-sharp weapon,
each grain of sand into a
contented sigh, hands
in pockets free from posy.
The pigtails have stopped bopping
up and down, the red balloon
not popped but slowly
floating round. In a corner
of a tree with clearly defined
edges, Charlotte’s daughter’s web
glimmers with dew and some
small lies but mostly caught flies
that can be eaten or cut free
with that weapon, wit-sharp,
not as shiny as it used to be but
rather dull like ashes, as
we all fall down.
You could ask, at this point,
about the purpose of slowly carrying on,
but you’d find yourself swathed
in sticky silk— this spider takes
that from no one.
She hopes your far-flung hopes
and dreams your improbable dreams,
and sometimes it seems that
being quiet is easier than being honest,
but we do our best.

If we stop learning moon names at Callisto
and Ganymede, where are the other sixty-three
whoop, there goes gravity
If Themisto stubbed his toe, how could we
teach everyone else to cringe?
We are growing,
Elara, we are learning how to reach
higher with the hands we’ve got,
how to be tiny dots full of not-quite fire
in a world so much bigger than desire.
The best advice you gave me,
Elara, was when you silently tied back
your hair and rolled up your sleeves,
cleared your throat and decided
It’s not the fire after all, it’s the light.
And I might have burned out by now
if you hadn’t just rolled up your sleeves
like that, not flaming or fuming or
running or burning but steady,
ready for the rest of forever.
You are fire and water at once,
Elara. You take my hand and we walk
calmly upward, one step
for me and one for you makes two
for womankind.
Stepping over the black hole
of expectations and into the revelations
of well-lit night. You and me,
Elara, now we’re ready.

sunspot
sunrise
sunshine
moonshine
i lick you off my lips like strawberry
                                             pineapple
                                             grape              ­    juice
                                             a fine wine that i’ve never drunk.

asteroid belt
orion’s belt
daddy’s belt
i am opening the door a crack for you only to slam it in your face—i am
waiting for you to knock
             to pound your fist against the gate
             to break your hand on the wood
                                 i am waiting for you to say that you love me
                                 and i am waiting for myself to believe it completely
                                 (i think you do but i am still afraid you might leave me)

((jupiter has 67 moons and i think that i might be
                        each and every single one of them)).

oort cloud
smoke cloud
the burning ash of my father’s lit cigar flicking onto my hands
i am awake at night and thinking about how you no longer taste like lung
                                                                ­                                       mouth
                                                                ­                            kidney        cancer.
my grandfather almost died of prostate cancer
my friend is dying of brain cancer
my father will probably die of liver cancer
                                                          ­ there is not enough space in the cosmos
                                                          ­ for all of us, is there?                   … God?

meteorite
meteoright
i am trying to sleep without your face in the back of my neck
                                                      hand on the back of my hand
                                                      leg tangled around the back of mine
i am trying to telepathically whisper my secrets into your ears
                                                       but the only problem is that i have not yet
                                                             ­  mastered  this  form  of  communication—
          i think that everything would be so much easier if i just didn’t feel.