Watching
In the cold—
Floating above
An emptied starship
I watched my world cry
All of it caught
In death’s eye
That mirrors life.
In that distant past
I didn’t know its unity
And didn’t ask
For I was blind
And thought my kind
Would always know
The cold clean distance of separation.
And my hearing
Didn’t recognise the lolling
Of calves
And mistook it for tautness,
For the tension
That propels cupid’s errant arrow.
Give me that last second back
For I didn’t order the silence
That still I hear screaming.
The still of screaming.
I didn’t know
That taut was infinitely slack
And no matter the pulling
Would never come back.
Only the question remains.
Or so I thought, dear heart.