by Shay Vera-Cruz
It has a sound: the wide solitude of gravity
in the breath between one star &
the next.
imagine suns, scarce
inches apart.
& still possessed by
unassailable
distance:
summer frosted diamond &
sharp;
rain rising up,
instead of falling.
The patience
of storms like waiting giants.
When it rains Atlas bites his tongue
as the sky dares to buckles under
its own weight & he
wonders if this
is what he must
sustain for.
It has a sound: a heavy hand in the dark,
trees falling in counterpoint—
the space between a body &
its elements;
between a thing &
itself.
How absence
is its own kind of silence & how
the night can sink so dark &
heavy
it becomes something
you have to carry.