Call me Stellar Demise, my hemoglobin pulses with the last exhalations
of stars. I have cast myself
into a cup, a scaffold, a fence, a pipe, a cup. That which is foundational,
marks the edge of a loving space, or fills
to overflowing, that which can be used as weapon, but more often
the thing that spills
over. Well-seasoned skillet, molasses, rust. Some days I’m so hard, heavy. Others,
so magnetic I can't move. I have carried water
no one would want to drink, water not fit for a child to bathe in. Cells of the fetus
I aborted at age twenty-one
bored through the blood-brain barrier and his tiny double-helixes corkscrewed
my mind. He still courses
through me. I imagine his eyes the color of black ore, like his father's. Sometimes
I dream him into a strong body, a body
outside of myself, a body I can touch, and I become a spigot, all I do is weep.
Another star died and found its way here.
