CRIMSONA MAJOR
TWISTING UP FROM THE ETHER A SNUFFED RED EMBER
MY BODY NAILED IN THIS STARLINED CAGE
SO ALONE AND FLATTENED A CAMEO BROOCH
TO GATHER DUST IN THIS COSMIC DRAW
ALL AT ONCE HUNGER'S BITTER STREAM
WEEPS OUT OF MY GAZE PLUNDERING THE BLANKNESS
FOR ANY GLIMMER OF LIFE
ALAS ONLY DARK SAP TO POISON THE EYES
SEND THEM PLACID AND FOOLISH
SEE ONLY THE PLANETS SUCH GLOWING RHINESTONES
STITCHED INTO THIS ENDLESS AND LEATHERBLACK NIGHT
HOW TIME SLIPS FOREVER AND I IN ITS JAW
MUST WRITHE OR LAY
WITH MY STOMACH IN TWO
ONLY WHEN I'D GIVEN UP
COULD I SMELL YOU
I KNEW AT ONCE YOU WERE MY MESSIAH
YOUR SCENT LIKE PURE HONEY
YOUR LITTLE EYES CASTING MERCY
FROM FAR DOWN IN HEAVEN
NOW I COUNT THE SECONDS ON YOUR PERFUME
IT IS YOU SWEET OXYGEN ONLY YOU
You are tired. The day was so long. Every day is so long. You slump over the cafeteria table. There is nobody else to see you slump, and so you slump. This place is fluorescent at all hours--a harsh environment, calling to mind a zoo with its large windows gaping out onto frosted mountains and thick, serpentine forests. Nonetheless, at this time of night the cafeteria becomes ghostly quiet. Aside from your dorm, it is the only place you can work in peace. You flick through the day’s lab notes. You sip at the dark, bitter mouth of vending-machine coffee. It very nearly bites back.
You are twenty-eight and three months. If all goes to plan, this is your final year of academic learning. You will graduate soon. Yes, if only you can hang on. You cannot see beyond this period of time. It feels you have been here forever. The murkiness breeds a strange branch of hope--anything could happen. But first the degree. Here, in the grey cafeteria, at the grey table of grey papers, looms the final months of your extended diploma in 'Astral Studies', which really you had hoped would entail more stargazing and fewer numbers. Numbers are concrete. Numbers are sharp, and comforting in this sharpness, but upsetting in their stagnancy. They cannot be interpreted, as constellations can.
For instance, many of your classmates have interpreted the constellation blooming on your arm as anything from a primitive dagger to an earthworm. Others answers have included the following: spiral chandelier, red wine bottle, moon-based flagpole, plastic straw, condemned prisoner, broken colony of ants, and, most commonly, “Just freckles on your arm, Andrew. Please stop asking.”
Though it is January Fourteenth, you have taken to wearing shorter sleeves to get a better look at the pattern whenever you so wish. It is composed of nine individual, crimson pinpricks on the sunny-side of your left arm. You could draw it from memory. Still, you like to look at it sometimes, to reassure yourself it is still there. You look at it now. It shimmers faintly beneath the yolk-like lights.
You run your fingertips over your