if we are all godimage then what color is godskin
some earth tone merging in commuter crowd
on the subway platform like a human version
of the one-electron theory
which one of you am I supposed to be?
which of the infinite permutations
is godsex? gas station
attendant flipping on logo light, hoping
to attract a mate, some long-tongue
internal combustion
drinking unleaded 92 octane nectar
from his pumps, draping the atmosphere
in a honey of greenhouse gas.
we wipe up the wet spot of royal jelly
squeezed from all those single-vehicle collisions.
if it’s all nebula-born, what tone is the ground
molten mercury desert, lunar lakebed, rusty martian
hills, where do we stand, what color is sunskin?
on which planet is the kingdom of heaven?
’cause it’s clearly not anywhere here
and the dead are just being recycled
(at least into something useful
like leather upholstery and tires
or sex dolls and fossil fuels)
when we could have used them
for reaction mass instead.
if we are a way for the universe to know itself
why are the stars spread so thin?
if hell is other people,
then paradise must be this already loneliness.
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Josh Pearce has published more than 200 stories, reviews, and poems in a wide variety of magazines, including Analog, Asimov’s, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Bourbon Penn, Cast of Wonders, Clarkesworld, Diabolical Plots, Kaleidotrope, Locus, Nature, On Spec, Weird Horror, and elsewhere. Find more of his writing at fictionaljosh.com. |