rapture #5
we are standing on the purple cliff at the end of time
and you are crying smoke and thunder because everyone you loved
has left and i am sad too because you do not understand that i am so happy
that you are here with me watching the lights fade from the buildings in the distance
with their busy dots of lights that look like a patchwork quilt or a bed of candles
and i know you are thinking about why you have not ascended like the rest
but i am just thinking about how much i love the corner of your mouth
how your hand feels in mine now that i am the only hand left to hold
and as my grip loosens on your perfect fingers and you begin your float away
i am crying because i can still feel the awful, dying ground beneath my feet
i stare at the soles of your shoes until it hurts to look at the light you have become
poem in which i can’t quite fuck the infinite
there is a girl at the end of the garden in a beautiful dress
made of the exquisite golden space between dying stars
i can see the softest skin blushing through the fabric of time
i can see all the enormity that anyone could ever become
and she whispers to me when I am inside that fuzzy bliss
just between sleep and waking, she says to me that when
a star dies it breaks in to an endless stream of deep cosmic
light that curls in on its glowing heart to form a black hole that
chews up the lonely and we are in the black hole now, cold as
she is telling me that i could place myself inside her softness
let my blood thrum alongside the faint hiss of the universe
as it wraps itself around my sorrow, at last a hand to hold
if only i could reach out and find her infinite fingers in the dark
Stuart Buck (he/him) is a BOTN/BIFFY50 nominated poet and artist living in North Wales. His second book Becoming Something Frail was released to critical acclaim on Selcouth Station Press in 2019. When he is not writing or reading poetry, he likes to cook, juggle and listen to music. He suffers terribly from tsundoku — the art of buying copious amounts of books that he will never read. Tweets @stuartmbuck
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