My Woman From Tokyo

For Laura Shigihara

Spinning in artificial gravity
I speed through the darkness
your words and thoughts
pure intention
juxtaposed
disintegrating within me in shades of color
warming me against the cold of space

I have no window except one and I am quietly aware
that if I look at the rising sun
it will burn my retina

And I will go blind
Perhaps I am running from something
Perhaps I am playing a game
But the future comes from the rising sun
and not the breaking dawn

In her eyes I see there is no sunrise
only blackness
I see myself spinning
endlessly through the darkness
I am alone on the open ocean
and she is my warmth

Cold silence
and fragments of sharp rock
fly through the void
cutting through metal skin

But ahead
in the center of my strongest nightmare
burns a red circle
where we will land

And together
we bring with us
A virus

Her smell
Her scent
Her ruthless beauty

I know she is origin
And I know that we are there
to start a world
or perhaps more appropriately
we are contagion
We are legion
We are the darkness and the light
We are the quiet words and sounds
Between supposed lovers

The graceful finger
pointing at the moon

That slowly before my eyes
becomes blood olbers paradox red

Atrophied in my failing sight
I regenerate in her music

Her hair turns
from black into bright white