Mike Fiorito

Under a spiral arm, she kissed me. A beam of moon-glare light streaked past us. A meteorite?

She laughed. But my heart felt heavy. Something about her emerald eyes said she would have to leave.

Shiny metallic rocks. A pulsar beating like a desperate heart. The sound of a waterfall.

Scared of heights, I looked at where my feet stood. I must be standing upright, I thought, but it was hard to tell. Was this an asteroid? I had only seen them in books. Dark black chunks of angular rock. Pockets of glittery metals. Suspended in the shawl of eternal night.

I didn’t know her name, but I knew her. Yet I couldn’t place when or where we had met. Maybe we had always met here. Her paraffin white face, so smooth and perfect. Full lips, like rose petals. Almond shaped eyes.

We didn’t speak so much as share jokes, looking at the stars. I made a gesture, pointing my finger, suggesting that I lived in one of those distant solar systems. Her laugh made my skin tickle. She nodded and pointed with her nose, as if saying yeah I’m going to be just as vague with my astronomical directions. Then she reached out to hold my hands in hers. She took a deep breath. Suddenly, her eyes grew wet. I wanted to burst out crying, too. All of my old games laid bare. All my hang-ups exposed. We held each other, our bodies shaking.

Then everything seemed to tilt. A hole in the sky opened, pulling everything into it. As she drifted away, we reached toward each other. In that moment, her fingers like long flower stems. Her nails painted ocean blue.

I knew we’d meet again.

Don’t die, Bob Dylan. Don’t die not now. The clocks are moving backwards; their hands are out of work. The hours are aging, heavy and lonely, like old heroes from an ancient war. I don’t mean to sound like a coward, Bob Dylan. I’m not asking you to write the songs we need. I’m not asking you to give us a pound of flesh. You have every right to water your toes in some cool ocean, or to let someone call you grandpa. You have every right to write bad songs and sing them horribly. If I could wrestle a whale with whispers, or lull the moon to sleep with words, I would. I don’t need you to do anything – nothing at all – I just need you to not die, Bob Dylan. Not now. I need to know that you are living and breathing. I need to know that you can sing – even horribly. And that maybe, just maybe, I will sing with you and for you and for us all.

When the bed’s miserly corners
Consort with the ceiling to enfold you,
You reach for the lever – never
Did you think?
Life could shrink
So small that you couldn’t count Angels within its walls?
So small
Air strangles in one last breath.

And near death,
You reach for the lever – forever
Is a long time to dangle your feet off –
Of a sun crushed to the caution
Of an atom.