Saturnalia

by ..

Matthew Tierney

 

The bouquet’s sneaky as
a sunset, night-lit sparks
from the pink roses I gave
my wife last week; roses dying
an expected death, a few
half-closed like the beaks of
fledglings, others breathing
like a galaxy, if a galaxy
could be said to breathe.
Who sees change anymore?
Permeable, unsiftable
sensory cues, the way falling
degrades the dream;
dozens of trillions of
molecules form top notes
of decay, a space helmet
around my head. I inhale,
pure seconds froth into
the white-not-blue light
of substation afterlife. It’s
nobody’s fault this spiral
on sidereal axis, this drift
through a ring of asterisks.