I wash you down
with thick milk I bought today
from a farmer with skin made orange-grey
from the handling of ancient dirt
whose eyes crinkle at their pretty corners when I drop
my change into his palm, old pennies new dimes flickering
nickels, uncorroded bright weight
of metal slipped easy as a dog’s kiss
lapped up in the hand

It’s true:
everything
on this brutal blue
dot is constructed of elemental attraction
& I wash you down with a tall glass of the whitest white
wash you down, soak the salt of your body in my salt,
thinking, sweetly actually, of the side effect
“metallic aftertaste”

I know, right now, in a distant laboratory you
are being mixed with aluminum, copper,
manganese, cadmium to make
planes strong yet featherweight
they need you
because you are famous
for being the lightest
of your cousins

It’s because of you

something heavy should fly