aluminum earth 

i've noticed a steady increase
in gravity. don't give me the physics-- 
i want the truth.

you've felt it too

i've watched how you dig in the backyard
in a desperate search of time capsules:
shovel slung over shoulder, making welts 
in the earth-- 

the onion grass slipping between
our fingers & becoming eyes to be peeled
apart layer by layer. 

the earth's crust a kind of
18-rind clementine to unfurl & unfurl

the flesh is hot magma & tectonic 

there's the shorter days 
& shorter bed posts as evidence

this is the closest i will come to science

i don't mean time i mean the gravity pull-- 
i mean the way

the curtains have started opening themselves

the way the trees trunks have started to
push deeper in the soil like 
pencils hurled at the classroom ceiling

what will this mean for us?

i see it all aluminum

scrunched in god's callous fists 
as he makes a smaller & smaller planet

bone rubbing bone

sky scrapers kneeling-- 
this isn't all about height

i sit down at my desk & install 
a doll house window in my forehead

& all the people arrive like it's a 
drive-in theater

a memory of us with no gravity

in the bounce castle & afterwards 
in the forest behind the creek full
of ticks 

& mosquito bites like
pebbles skipped beneath the skin

keep skipping me stone &
record & sunday until there's 
no more pull 

until shoelaces untie themselves
& the final distancing occurs

before them we will be fantastically close

crushing alley & street

time square around everyone's corner
& machu picchu, a stepping stool to stand 
at while we wash out hands at the sink

i'm thinking about gravity because
i'm wondering if this will bring us
all close together 

i want to say "together again"

but distance is so so human

i have come to know 
love as an address & always 
a handful of miles away

i stand outside & let the GPS read me
how far gravity has to break the landscape 

like bread-- like manna

i've given up on the physics

you look in the window &
see a pile of barbie shoes/
un-used green & yellow thumb tacks

do you believe me about the gravity

the thumb on our chest as
we lie awake in separate beds

sunflower seeds to be 
pushed into earth

when each step sink you in soil to
your thighs 

you'll believe me