This is a queer love poem.
Creatures of DusT
We are shedding bits of ourselves
not dead but repurposed glints of light
caught in beams of sun, resting
on collected semi-precious objects
of porcelain, glass, and stone.
Settling then swirling. Chaotic and sleepy.
Only ever addressed as galaxy.
It’s always us. Dust.
Cosmogonic ritual.
Each flake of skin falls into its own universe
everytime I scrape my nails down your back.
We were gods once! Did you know?
I would say we are now
but to fall from heaven memory must fail;
and we seem to keep forgetting
how infinite we are!
How each eyelash is a scroll of spells that call the moon.
How we’ve kissed before
but then we tasted of burning helium and hydrogen
and now we taste like peach.
I lick a bit of pulp off your cheek.
How funny!
I’m desperate to know you, but I know you!
Why do I question the day I awoke to you
and said, “Ah yes, here I am!” collected in your flesh?
Still, I had to ask your name twice.
You said it was, the Beginnings of Beginnings, Genesis
of Squash Blossoms, Slug Mouths on Cat Puke,
Fox-Wolf Runner, Rain on Burnt Shoulders, Mnemosyne.
It was, Virtue of Primordial Memory. The Road Home.
You used digital archives to find photos
of your grandfather’s home in Korea.
One image, outdated, held a quaint traditional home.
One image, a leveled plot of land.
How did the dust feel when the roof was gouged open
releasing them into naked air? Your child skin cells and soft broken hairs went careening
into the already scorching summer dawn.
They’re feral now, like you.
Never nostalgic for the body it once was.