I Am a Star in a Galaxy of Grandmothers
Study of a supernova at the beach
The tulle of my grandmother’s dress like a comet tail, a bouquet of algae tonguing my feet. I track the red sequins of her eyes in the surf. Anything left is mine to love: a spray of sand, ropes of thunder. I hail from a circle of grandmothers racked by monsoons and orphaned by metal. Their arms as warm and still as the riptide. We dream of lost time, the specter of a plane after takeoff, tongues domesticated into petals. I open my hands to harbor. There’s the white wedding of foam, the dusky pillows of sea glass. Every sphere begins as an infinity of circles. Every child begins as an infinitive. My grandmother wailing like a gulf of sirens. Here we are: touched by emergency, jettisoned from empire. Under a sting of sky, the supernova vaporizes our one home. Crabs and starfish respawning only as myths. My grandmother cradles me until our shapes are atomized. Nothing more loved than disaster.
Orange Saints
On Sunday my father takes my brother to the shooting rang. The targets he ruptures are orange, unknown, thumbprint small. When they stutter, I imagine the bullets as comets fizzling out of an octave sky. Holes flexed around the shapes of stillness, marked like tree rings. My father shows him a photo of the muzzle flash, says: this is the sun you'll inherit, as the rivers embrace oil spill, as the time capsules decay to dirt. Know there exists an orange sun for every son. A grace for every wildfire. Break a fever and burst it orange, open. O, oath of bullets. Teach us how to plant our hearts like flags on solid ground.