My Mind Goes to Small Things (Boyer)

 

I can feel my molecules
drawing apart.
The orbits of my electrons
unwind moving ever farther out
like the planets
dispersing.

What was Eve like
as an old woman?

This hand, no, just
the back of this hand –
acres of dry creek bed
carved among liver spots,
those desert shadows.

We can’t know all that’s lost until it is.
Her world. Ours.

I am seventy years old.
One of the fragile.

And how did Eve die?
Small collapses,
an atom at a time
– the woven stuff becoming threadbare?

I am safe for now.
Sunlight shines through my window.

Out there, far away in other rooms
others die. We count how many every day.

Marion Starling Boyer has published four poetry collections, most recently, The Sea Was Never Far, released by Main Street Rag in 2019. She’s conducted workshops for the Kalamazoo Poetry Festival, the Wisconsin’s Washington Island Writers Festival, Lit Cleveland, and Lit Youngstown. More about Boyer is available at marionstarlingboyer.com.