Attrition & When You are Gone
When you are gone,
it’s as though the stars are grains of salt.
I can feel them between the pads of my fingers.
It’s as though a small hand grasps a small branch—
I stare out onto the road from the house.
My arms are always full—
words are always coming from my mirror.
A plane is always passing overhead.
I listen for something calling
from the rough mouth of the sycamore.
I can hear an animal stir inside its stall,
searching for the sky in the rafters.
Something’s always asleep beneath
the pile of firewood. You linger and leave,
and it’s when I’m no longer young.
It is evening. I can only see the ground and hear
the sounds going soft.
Attrition
The room where I lie, where dying curls,
and I feel weight pressing
at the foot of the bed.
I dream of a houseplant falling—
a hardwood floor muddied,
the potting soil and fertilizer particles
I scoop with my hands.
There are two nude lovers
disappearing into a bedroom, only created
as an afterthought. They hurry into a universe
where no god has ever visited.
When you open the door, you can see the galaxies
gradually engulfing each other.
One named Milky Way,
the other Sagittarius.
I hear a hiss introduced to the room
where oxygen is placed, spattering a fine spray,
condensing on my nose and lips.
My breath conveys no mercy as nurses
come and hurry away, and each evening
I am bathed. My skin anticipates
the soap and water spilling
over my abdomen and chest.
I shiver as I am towel-dried, and my sheets are replaced.
There is no visitor, so there is no one
to feed me when I ask.
The universe is this room,
and all of its motion is mad—
There is a pool of water where I have been placed—
it is a silver, luminous pond,
and when I look, my eyes
begin to burst. There is the thought of wholeness
within my body’s sphere—
There is a rising sensation and heat that comes,
but it’s the pulling apart, the stars as they are stretched.