Benediction for the World-Weary
A poem
What if I told you to breathe
as through silver ions,
to open your lungs to some far morning
and dream of a swift sunrise,
the sweet taste of air that rises
over an untired body?
You, who have poked a thousand constellations
into your soul’s friable skin,
little star-pricks of scar tissue
that paint a map of every grief
to touch your calloused feet.
I would speak some lullaby
into the gnarled muscles of your shoulders,
back; some astriferous serenade
that whispers to the stardust in your skin
be free.
You may not drift through ether,
not now, or yet —
but go to where the water ripples,
the milky way painted on her skin,
and float.
The light of a thousand million lifetimes
sings through your hollow shape;
a million times the love and loss
that you will ever know,
and yet it remains somehow beautiful
