dust in the joints from the galaxies,
dust on the sill, the desk around
the lamp and the glass of blue and
black pens, pencils, bookmarks,
dust along the bloodstream rivers
like the ash of human wildfire
the square of sun on the floor beneath
the window has shined on births and deaths
throughout the decades, and a fly lands
in one corner, rubs its mandibles in
eagerness as he steps through the blinding void
no one lived here, they only passed through
no one was born and no one died, that
was a lie to tell the sunlight, to tell the mind
in order to rise the next day thinking
something may happen here, but there is
a door waiting and once you go through it
everything happens somewhere else;
a line in the sand at the edge of the water
dust on the tie-pin, dust on the ring,
dust along the rim of the red coffin silk,
tucked away in the folds, hidden, marooned
on an island that never saw a sea, a ship
setting sail for our atrophied infinity—
you and I, and the dust on the fly
