1321

I saw you spread at the peak of
Babel
then your father
called
said he was moving to Berlin but
I was too busy
getting stoned with the apostles
to care at all

where’d you get all those
bee stings
your mother wanted to know but
your father was too busy
collecting honey to answer

your sisters warned you
weren’t truly from the moon that
you didn’t know how to play guitar
without blinking
or stuttering
that you were human
but I didn’t care
your movements left traces
in stardust all the same

then you waltzed on a beetle’s back
hair in your mouth
a little firefly
afraid of orbit
caught in your own hand

moon with its curtain came
and you shrank away
inside yourself
through the stones of Babylon
with the knowledge everyone will be
forgotten