And Another Thing
BY Zachary Kluckman
Your tongue is smarter than you. Shut
up.
While your knees attempt to convince your mind life
consists of being hinged - or -- unhinged
it is earning a degree in telemetry. Convinced
language is an expression of time, short-burst
wavelengths almost spark light with their collisions.
Like them, our atoms inevitably meet.
Are we transformed by the intercession of particles?
If the old adage is true, every breath draws into us
the DNA of dinosaurs, Lincoln’s beard, every human
whose ash has touched the earth. The architects of
the Nazca lines. The first harvester of dragonfruit
now seeds our family tree. The legend of the mandrake
roots us to shared histories, fears older than government.
Picture this skin painted with the last breath of DaVinci.
From the top of Everest, the salt-wet of Hillary’s tears
plummets to the pulse beneath our wrists.
We are immortal at the atomic level. Touched
continuously by the past, our skin is flypaper
for ghosts. The dead and the living
swim in the sweat above your lip.
If you’re a germaphobe, I’m sorry.
But you have tasted life, literally.
What’s left to fear? When you wish a kiss,
the afterglow, this moment
could last forever
it does.