Splitting Space-Time

the birds wind upward until the wrinkles in the sky

follow through your fingers' tracing—your finger nails slice the air

open, the clouds drip out like lemon juice wrenched

from the rind. i can reach up, stretch my neck toward Saturn

to taste the liquid that makes my lips pucker, your sour mash

that burns the fingernail you cut too close to your cuticle.

there's something rough about the Milky Way,

the way it swirls about—a saw blade, tearing the universe

in half, splitting space-time until a wormhole forms

and all the lifeless matter finds itself anew scattered across the stars—

even i was sucked in, my tongue wincing from citrus

here on earth: the state in which i took a good sharp paring knife

and made a white red giant give its final kiss goodnight.

there are no birds in space: there is nothing there;

no up for them to travel, and a wormhole is not what they have

here on Earth—they would fly upward

until they saw the earth again from the bottom

and fly upward again, like a film reel clicking before the cellulose rips

to show only the white light behind—the poor birds would never find

the white light from Heaven of any kind: they would keep moving

past the earth until their wings withered and they died

because there are no worms—early or otherwise—in the great beyond.

there are no fruit trees: no place for them to nest

or for me to find a sting for the tip of my tongue,

to make my lips crinkle. space is nothing but big

and big is only so frightening when it is the void that comes

with speaking love on the telephone.