Melissa Allen

Glitter becomes you:

inspired, you spread a thin layer

of glue on arms and other rounded parts,

and upturn upon them the elegant jar of gold dust,

rapturously letting it describe and delimit, as it descends,

your ghostly form, previously so vague, and white, and un-wish-for-able.

You say, Get a load of this!, making muscles, inclining to accentuate curves,

giddy with the blindness you can see that you're inflicting.

Startled, I stare, grown tired of selflessness,

wanting to own everything you possess;

I grasp your flesh, sweeping off grit in showers

of electric sparks, gravity stripping you once more bare:

grains of wheat, pearls of rice, gratings of savory cheese,

and you, goddess, just you now, and the memory of

glitter.

stars falling
more and more
I wonder why