by Asma Mammootty
Art by Jennifer Xu
Issue: Aphelion (Spring 2016)
A long piece of string
from the lower end of a crescent moon
hangs so long that it can wrap
around each ray
of each star
of each
of the seven heavens,
collecting all the star pollen it can,
before shooting down into the poofy clouds,
puffing all that white fire away and wrapping the string
in a milky wisp of mist, with which it can slip through
the moist atmosphere and into our vacuum of a city–
-a city in which neither
cries nor laughs nor all
too loud floats around
because it’s all woven under
our jackets, hot air to keep us
warm – because that little piece
of string dropping down from eternity’s
not long enough to wrap around you and me,
but through every single shining soul in
the seven earths, it’s running
to collect all the soul dust it can,
like a hook,
before
shooting
down your
hollow throat,
sucking away all that ice
that you’ve been saving for me,
and wrapping round your head, your
chest, your heart, and squeezing so hard
to remind you, that whenever you feel like you’ve had
enough and you start pulling down to stay down,
you’ve always got the weight of the moon
pulling you
back up
to the stars
and telling you
that even though
it’s so ******
and painful
to get strung up
in everything
will be alright