In the Asteroid Belt
Between spread fingers
we are bits of flesh, no more.
Like a rock left over
from the beginning,
you never come close to earth.
Not to mess
with switchblades,
I shake loose my sweat,
fix a frequency,
a steady hum with no collisions.
Grooming myself before you,
I’m the site of pyramids,
the pleasure of air in your lungs.
Sitting down next to you,
my bones slip without color—
a cloud transferring
to the ionosphere
or a quiet sound at the edge of space.
—
Iconic Fossils
3.2 million years ago
we stood up straight
our divergent thumbs
embedded in our bodies.
You and I are unlike
like a dog’s sense of smell
or the musing of a trapeze artist.
Only scholars strutting out words
a one-note serenade to me—
is this encoded in your genes?
Closing my eyes, I see you
a cage for my mind.
When I speak, our history
tumbles out, a valley
of exasperated hands in the air.
I mutter, even lizards tell us
the structure of our brains is the same.
In fraught seconds, I’m drawn to you.
Slush underfoot, we slide to each other
relearning names of geologic eras
and in rigid delight
we feel the unmistakable tug
of tender gifts flipping in our veins.
Our future persists until one day
we’re fragments of bone like those
lying in wait in the badlands of Ethiopia.
—
