Size / / /

you tread on dead wood,
your face awash with moonlight
bent down by the soft grey clouds.

you feel music and a scene
where two lovers commingle
breaths in abject tenderness.

i tell you i think you are my answer
to the terror of being alone
in a graveyard of buried stars,

its every dead-ash sun a crumbled cipher
to a universe that gave birth to itself
to answer the very questions i make of you.

i tell you i can look in the green iris pools
of your eyes and not hear blood in my ears;
i hear atoms falling together and falling apart,

and i am so afraid that between our bodies
lies only warped and empty space --
a coldness where nothing moves,

where all are caught in isolate crystal,
an eternity of nothing stirring --
no photon bursts, no hand brushing a face.

i move towards you,
and my mouth makes the shape
of unanswerable desperation.

you ask about constellations,
pointing to a star you think i named
for you -- it still burns, you say,

and elsewhere, they all burn.
i hold my questions in my mouth,
i press my hand to your warm face.

 

Copyright © 2002 Emily Gaskin

Reader Comments


Emily Gaskin currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where perpetually cloudy skies conspire to keep her from ever enjoying use of her new telescope. She has poetry forthcoming in Star*Line, Moxie, and the Dreams of Decadence anthology. For more about her, visit her Web site.



Bio to come.
Current Issue
18 Nov 2024

Your distress signals are understood
Somehow we’re now Harold Lloyd/Jackie Chan, letting go of the minute hand
It was always a beautiful day on April 22, 1952.
By: Susannah Rand
Podcast read by: Claire McNerney
In this episode of the Strange Horizons Fiction podcast, Michael Ireland presents Little Lila by Susannah Rand, read by Claire McNerney. Subscribe to the Strange Horizons podcast: Spotify
Friday: The 23rd Hero by Rebecca Anne Nguyen 
Issue 11 Nov 2024
Issue 4 Nov 2024
Issue 28 Oct 2024
Issue 21 Oct 2024
By: KT Bryski
Podcast read by: Devin Martin
Issue 14 Oct 2024
Issue 7 Oct 2024
By: Christopher Blake
Podcast read by: Emmie Christie
Issue 30 Sep 2024
Issue 23 Sep 2024
By: LeeAnn Perry
Art by: nino
Issue 16 Sep 2024
Issue 9 Sep 2024
Load More