Small Parts

When we were young and finding each other,
I wanted to meet your molecules, before I knew
the word, like being introduced to your parents.
Then in science class, I found out even
particles have smaller parts in their makeup.
Is nothing itself? I thought. That's when
I first began to lose sight of you in you.

Where were you in all these universal pieces?
Was your heart merely a galaxy among nebulae
of chest? The blood, the swirling of so much
light and sea salt?

Watching you sun yourself in your blue bikini,
at the distant end of the back yard,
I was convinced you weren't there.
The smallness of your vertebrae stacked
like knuckles down your back persuaded me
this scene, that body, was a placeholder for you.

From the back window, I imagined
seeing your skin's pores up so close
I couldn't recognize you in them. It was just
your arm in binocular view. Even your thoughts,
small fruit of mind.

I take it, now that you are dead
these several years, the light fragrances of you
remaining in your robes will fade to lesser ones.
The last traces of you will vanish from dresser top
into fragments no machine, no microscope, no matter
how small its eyes, can find. I guess that's death:
being too tiny for detection out there, while hanging,
large as a red coat in the closet, in here.

Copyright © 2005 Ron Houchin All rights reserved
from Rive Gauche
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission