“How We Glitter Up” & “Shebang”

How We Glitter Up

In the upcoming years, or the morning or evening skies
we acquaint ourselves with slow deaths. We are outer
satellites, crazy copper bodies allowed to keep

our gasses. It wasn’t our fault, this complex interaction
with the atmosphere, it’s how we angle ourselves
above the horizon. This has made conversation

brief; following Io around its orbit, how ocean currents
carry huge amounts of Sun’s energy. Jupiter was
so damned hot, but we said nothing. What

is the catastrophe of experience? I could not
match your brightness, your strong magnetic field,
how your fist, held at arm’s length, was a full ten degrees

inextinguishable, and flashing
either side of this invisible celestial path.

 

Shebang

This is one ticket stub you’ll keep,
wine in hand, dog unlaced at your feet.

When all that’s left is the outline
of what was, seamburst of the Universe,

primordial nucleosynthesis, helium
deuterium lithium tritium beryllium

appearing for the first time. And what about
what’s hidden below your cosmic clothes

and inside your rib-slats – what dog lies easy
in the milkweed while all around him hums ecstatic

reminders of a silent god you shattered
forth from, shards of whom you still hold deep.