Finally Iron

Listen to me when I tell you about

her hands

long and callused

singed with chemical burns and stained with ink

cleverly twisting glass

marbles in her fingers

like sparks of stars in the night sky.

Listen to me

when I tell you how

she looks at me

the way her eyes flush with joy

the curve of her mouth mischievous

because she knows my

breath matches the pulsing of her

heart listen to me when I tell you about

her smile

gorgeous and sublime

about the gap between her two front teeth

about the yellow film that never fades

no matter how much mint I smell on her tongue

imperfection that serves as my only proof

that she is real.

Listen. Listen to me when I tell you about

her laboratory

the trembling titrations she swirls

around and around

at the edge of a pink blush

about the acrid smell of hydrochloric acid

and burning ethanol that makes my head

swim behind the goggles she swears

will keep me safe

about the star charts spread beneath her sharp gaze

about the way she traces the constellations with her knuckles

about the thin and scratched scrawl of her notes

the work of a genius I cannot understand

and cannot bring myself to doubt.

Listen to me when I tell you about the words that spill from her mouth

like a dying waterfall

how she goes on and on about

stoichiometry and the geometry of molecules

about her obsession with nebulae and the creation

of the universe itself

a rush of knowledge that will send me

over the edge and bashing against the rocks

if the strength in my shoulders gives

for even a moment

listening to her tell me about

her blood.

The cut on her wrist that suddenly appears

when the blade in her eager hand accidentally glides

across her skin

forming a line the clots

the flow of her voice

as she watches it bead into droplets

droplets she does not bother to catch

as they descend from her flesh

and burst

onto the star charts below.

Listen to me when I tell you how she talks about

iron

when she tells me that the iron

in our blood was forged

in the hearts of stars

that it took millions and billions of years

for fusion

the tenuous balance between pressure and gravity

that keeps stars alive and blazing

to turn hydrogen into helium

helium into carbon

carbon into oxygen

oxygen into silicon

silicon into finally

finally iron

and because that star dare create iron

the balance between pressure and gravity collapses

and fusion surrenders to the battle

it was always destined to lose

and because the star loses

because it implodes from its brilliant life into the death of a supernova

because something as beautiful and immortal as a star died

we are

here

we are

together

alive with

iron

in our veins.