Nebula

The anemone of your dream blooms
inside the vacuum of space.
In your pocket of black wind
                            it floats in radial
symmetry, a remnant of terror
uprooted from its reef.
                                           You are floating
without body, though it lingers
like a signature,
the swell and implosion
of your matter, the wave reversing
              while advancing,
curling into itself but never
closing the loop, like a sand whorl
                            in the desert—

a scorpion’s tail there rippling the dust
and the man or something in that shape
asking if you’re all right
and you nodding yes
in this memory of violence
you can’t erase
                            —a hand on your neck
and between your thighs
and the sun pulsing
hot through your palms
as, with you, it vanished—

                        your body a vast breath
before you burned
open and your tongue
                                turned to blood
                                and skin melted pink
and your particles broke
for the cloud that parted
                through you,
and how you warped time, your cells
                heard across space
as the scientists had translated
vibrations
                of distant stars into sound
for you to hear and know
it was not too late to be alive
though it was.