Each — as a Spoke

Each,
we carry
the full weight of heaven,
the piled dust that probes a cloud
and falls upon a lock
unruly in a faint breeze.

Are we the air or
the stroke that cleaves it?
Who’s to know.

Who’s to resist the gas pull
of Jupiter on this morn, we
strung out like bands
of flax and false renditions
of self and need as taut
as the light that drags burn
on a tired ridge that proves
itself brown, thick pressed
and tethered.

Ah, to float on a femur,
to bear the load of Saturn
as a wide brimmed hat — we —
unleashed below a mollusk moon,
sauntered here and then bedraggled
once upon a burden,
to find that all legs, all stems,
all things green and lively,
all things withered to dusk
rest,
upon a molten core
and gaze upward.

Image: NASA on Unsplash