she writhed under the cancellation of his gaze,
nothing more than a glum disturbance in the air.
though his eyes were planets she felt no gravity,
wasn�t falling toward the surface of his soul,
shedding layers of herself from the heat.

no one collected her, not even him,
for she had struggled into the oracle of outer space,
where antimatter was more pregnant than light;
where only a few mouths composed her solar system,
and they waltzed around each other in elegant ovals,
with no opinion on the puniness of her physics.

she could erupt into fountains of plasma
and no one would share the intensity.
she could snake her lips into weird smiles or frowns,
turn them into bows that shot the sharpest phrase

and no one would grasp it, not even him�
unless he took a microscope, placed it over her.
then he might glimpse her truth
on the hem of a protozoan.




�2006 by Chris Crittenden
~Originally appeared in The Hurricane Review