Your laugh could knock civilization out
but you are too modest.

I spent time at the cafeteria alone
at school. Red trays quivered.

On film sets I can’t look up.
How tight is the lighting rig?

When I apply that logic
to our place in the universe–

it’s too cold a stone to live alone.
When your soundwaves reach me,

in my solace, from the moon
or Mars or Mars, Pennsylvania,

I want my life to begin again
and I want you there

the whole time.

(originally published in Ephemeral Elegies, Spring 2023)