A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit
—Archibald MacLeish
That we are made of stardust—
poets and YA novelists
can’t get over it. Savoring
this combed-over marvel like the last
fleshy shreds of peach clinging
to the pit—the tip of a tongue
probing sweetness from stone.
And now, all unbidden:
a flash of Prufrock in the afterlife,
eating the hell out of some peaches.
But I digress.
Every peach in the supermarket pyramid
is a storage orb for star juice,
the sweetness of spent sunlight.
Or maybe what I mean is that
every still-fuzzy poem not written yet
is fruit in a star’s gas belly—paralyzed
by a modest rage and ambition.
Okay, yes, I get the stardust thing:
a worthy obsession, after all.
We’ve got to believe that
this day’s light survives, passes
over dark and breathless distance,
that somewhere, someone is left
looking up, making
patterns from extinction.
Written for the SLCC Student Reading and Writing Center’s 35th Anniversary
Learn more about SLCC Poet Laureate Brenda Sieczkowski in this article by Ashley Orduna.
