West

Sometimes I connect you in the night sky.
From galaxies I form you again
each molecule, each atom
each nucleic sun part of a rib, a heart,
a palm once pressed to mine.
Behind them, black infinities of your hair.

Sometimes I draw you with my fingertip.
Right hand traces east to west
over shoulders, hips, ankles;
universe expands a billion light years
for every strand of hair that grows.

Sometimes I dream you
lain out across the night
alive with nebulae and planetary motion,
with asteroids and scintillation. Alive.
And then, early, fading,
black hair barely turning to gray,
it always ends the same-
the aneurysm.

Somewhere in the still-dark west,
a pink supernova of delicately furled veins.

Simone Pugh

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