The Future
Melissa Buckheit

 

 

This is what is meant by stars in the universe—

 

                        they brush away the dust of my face

 

    completely.

                                          Orange Mars

                                                                 blue Venus,

 

       we sleep as the dust of the mountain.

 

        What plants exist without us,

 

                                          the wood we gather for the fire we make

                           sleeps into the mountain for millenia

 

            this light contained only by stars or noctilucent insects

 

            no hominid made to make energy

 

                                    energy in our making.

 

The sky closes, a door into the darkness

 

                         no more will remain than there

 

ever was.

 

                               With this we sleep, my love and I.

 

 

 

~~~~~

Melissa Buckheit is a poet, dancer, and a photographer. Her work has appeared in nth position, Blue Fifth Review, The Drunken Boat, UA Poetry Center e-Newsletter, Pirene’s Fountain, Bombay Gin, A Trunk of Delirium, and Sonora Review. A chapbook, Arc, was published in 2007 by The Drunken Boat, and her poetry has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes.