haunted by wholeness— bright debris sibilant beneath skin tug-of-warring with gravity, we harvest shine from the caves of mouths & crevices of eyes incandescent as we remember the most massive flares among us, detonate inside each other to hold tiny supernovae in our arms. Crushed bodies craving fusion keep us brimming with enough energy to pass on, keep us lit & lying to ourselves about the eventual & sudden ways we black hole— it already happened, it’s happening anyway, to happen soon, scattering all that we think matters so much now for another radiant giant to gather then fling across galaxies again—reconstituted & scorched clean, new turmoil begging from the inside out to burn.
From Starshine & Clay (Four Way Books, 2017). Copyright © 2017 by Kamilah Aisha Moon. Used with the permission of Four Way Books.