the code of separation

By: Katie Stanos

7 november 2017 (sight)
your veiny, wan feet/expansion/between you/the floorboards/creation of
     space
smacking the granite countertop breaks
     infinity they say
they said/stare into the threads of your black sweatshirt/the threads have threads and those
threads have threads/and so on

22 march 2018 (arrival)
everything/possible and imaginable was lived/call it the
     10th dimension
dimensions of your cheekbones underneath the glow of the streetlights
     suspended in reality
your image/an echo of my first and last breath
your image/a compilation of lights strung in time

10 august 2018 (dream)
floating in the eagle nebula/you sighed/into the dark abyss/it goes nowhere/silly
     you can’t speak in space/space can’t speak

27 october 2018 (revelation)
we truly never/touched/space between us will never stop growing/even/when I clutched your
cold hands/from kilometers to decimeters to attometers/and so on
     infinite decimals creating a code of separation

8 november 2018 (splice)
canyons separating your skin/little fragments of you/the pieces get smaller/smaller/smaller
until/there is nothing left/but/the shadow of your arm on the bedsheet
     i bite my tongue in fear

4 december 2018 (hesitation)
i told you/sometimes the cosmos we see doesn’t exist anyone/it’s just the
     light from the explosion
hasn’t come to us/yet/not knowing/“it’s over”/until/very much over
     my consciousness implodes at the thought

23 december 2018 (departure)
the night you went to the eagle nebula/i pulled my car into your driveway/smacked the hood of
my car/one last try/i thought/one last try

to break infinity after all