Stardust

imagine    
the souls of dead folk  
dissipating    
    
rising    
just that quiet    
and fading    
through endless blue    
or black    
and stars like pinholes    
and memories spun out    
and hard wrought truth    
twisted into one last hungry breath    
before the bony chest stops    
and the skin goes yellow    
   
i remember jesus in the manger    
his lights strung across the porch rail,    
a plastic snowman standing in the weeds    
and mama saying plug him in and light him up    
and her hanging clothes in grey December    
her skirt in the icy wind    
and fingers blue cold    
and those wide sheets blowing white against the tumbled sky    
   
and her gone now like that boy who watched    
and wished    
and never thought about disappearing    
   
and all that and this, too,    
all what little i am,    
these books    
and all what's beloved    
and sacred    
and all of it the same as yours,    
all of it tender in the fleshy pit behind the sternum    
but then just gone,    
even the holiest part of it,    
and our little lives mined for relics    
   
and so we wish for heaven    
and even hell    
where all our cherished pieces are melded    
and recognizable    
and our spark forever lights against the night sky    
strong beyond the memories of loved ones