You picked a dry flower, it threw shimmers like
streaks of unswept summer, dust and pollen collecting
in layers of loving and of lying and
layers of knowing and grief and distance,
when petals turn brown. Eventually the light you captured
will be lost from between your fingers.
I want to build things with you, not watch embers die,
I tell you. You reply, yes I know,
everything decays and someday we will too,
one day our brains and all their interiors
will be dirt in the garden, it will cling to someone’s shoes,
or it will be empty sunbeams whistling in someone’s hair.
I think about the brain, the unfathomable home.
The corners where our desires were lowering,
the windows where our thoughts were blinking,
the doors where our ideas were welcoming,
the staircases where our thoughts were spiralling,
the attics where our memories were greying,
and the basements upon which we founded ourselves.
But even so, even though you are right, even though
one day we will be just another thing,
long withering, but no, more like something
even less than hollow- not even made of matter-
the way we once were, the way we could blossom,
will always matter, won’t it?
