A Magazine of Many Arts

She stands in the sand
on the shore,
throwing stones
at the ocean.

As with all mass,
she is frozen energy,
stuck stock still until
a wave of angry lust
crashes over her,
alone in all that foam.

After the ebb
she is forced to collect
her thoughts like shells
and sand dollars
and piece them together

as the spitting, hissing salt
water dissolves
everything solid around her
into muddy rivulets

that run back
into the sea.

See, she remembers
that we are
frozen sunlight
melting under the black heat
of gravity.

Bit by bit our isotopes
and stereotropes
radioactive decay
into half
lives

until, with one last breath,
our chests blow out
like puffballs,

suspended in beams
of unfrozen
sun.

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