Cure - Sixth Finch

Cure

Midnight where you are. I can still hear

what you told me: how as the medication

wore off, you saw yourself get born;

not the birth canal, but farther

back and from a massive distance—plasma

dust-clouds, then your personal ignition

inside an unknown star. Which made sense,

stars keep fusing every building block

a body needs, their signatures in blood,

hair, skyscrapers, those helium balloons

that say get well. Too bad what we see

out there has mostly died already, light years

ago. It was cool for a while you said

but then I realized, I’m going into the fire again.

Three thousand miles apart, we held on

to our receivers. Sirens down your block

went by. One odd day, a universe

got born, and now we eat, shit, and hold

our phones enmeshed in something

that had no midwife, that no one

understands. They’re working on a cure,

but nothing happens fast enough

in this endless amnion, even photons

can’t catch the first shock wave—it just

keeps getting bigger. You’re practically

a star already, they’ve torched so many cells.

Who will call me when it’s time? You live

alone. I want to hear the full explanation,

a goddamn beautiful equation

for the space now labeled you, luminous

with poison, and why an entire cosmos

has no more power than any other womb

blown into existence, spawning milky

intricate versions of itself, unable

to save one thing its made.

- Published in Sixth Finch Spring 2023