Conservation of Matter

Oh to have a body

Messy, beautiful

Fluid and dust and stars sewn up

In the breakable harmony of our organisms

Perhaps —

Just as the iron in my blood

Once was galactic ore

Just as the water in my skin

Once rained through clouds,

Flowed through rivers

And will once more

Perhaps

Those cells, malignant in my chest

Roamed, prehistoric

A predator long extinct

Begotten of ancient stuff before it

And in unfeeling inertia;

The laws of conservation

Its echo made a home here

An ancient adaptation

Hungry friend, your parts could not stay

They sit in a lab now, pressed between glass

But their fossils, inside me, remain

Like you, I am primordial matter

A fragile mass

Ferociously seeking to exist on this plane