You know how it is. The asterism
of hot days. The undoing of the sun.
The dried rose hung upside down to
symbolize beauty in age. Death in age.
Transitive, death in beauty. Its
implications. You cannot stop playing,
after a while, after a while you just
realize there is death and beauty and age
in everything. You know how it is,
the anger of not being able to own the
sun and the slow realization that there
is sun in you, you are in the sun. The
anger at sun colonizers. They’re
everywhere. You can’t escape the feeling
that you’ve missed the prime, being
displaced and all. By a sunrise, by a
sunset. Dried roses don’t own the sun
just because they are consumed by it.
You cannot stop thinking about the sun
after you forget about it, it’s too
ubiquitous, too bright, soaping up the
sky. You think, sometimes, when the
sky is especially ash gray as dead skin,
that the sun is a cleaning lady, enslaved
by the domestic labor of brightening
so many people’s days, then you realize
it has to do it for eight, nine planets,
that it probably reaches beyond there,
and that it would burn without any
of those planets or people. You know
how it is. You cannot remember the
last time you burned alone. You know
how it is. The cataract of time. The
glare of distant Jupiter, unavoidable.
Life in supernova. The lift of a ladybug’s
wings. Eyes of wings, wings of—you
know how it is.