dust.

Somewhere they assemble, fragments in space
gathering into a mound, dissolved and defying nothingness.

How it’s never noticed: one swirling cloud of matter
eddying to the ground. We only give it names – dust,

dirt, mess, filth – avoided, scorned, evaded, detested,
swept up into the tangles of someone else’s broom

along a sidewalk. What is quickly spurned is barely
seen by the naked eye: transient particles of life,

touched now and then by streams of impeccable sunlight.
So what if this turns up into someone else’s world,

those specks suddenly magnified, figures breathing dust
from our everyday lives? We may never get to know

how the invisible exists, after the sweeping,
after it’s gone. Listen: There are whimpers behind us,

the terribly asthmatic, helplessness mingling
with ways of the unknown, the last remaining pieces

swept away all the same, vague illusions in their place,
perhaps second-guessing, coughing sputum in its wake.