WHERE I BECOME YOU (5.) Poem by Antjie Krog

5.

dismantled starfoam
stripped
swaggering starheaps of ruin
dust that thickens latent and formless

gravity's force imposes her will
and gone at once
all sheltering

vulnerably reeling clots form their blades of light
stars vulnerable
stars pockmarked

how the spiral arms linger
around the new stately tilting tenderness
how chaotic the swirling

starspittle
starfoamfog
we could have been the ones together
if we could have recruited each other more bloodily

but now you come to recover me
at the other end of this giddy world
to be taken-apart-set-down
the nails in blood
the milk in bones
the phosphorus in the cortex
we, yes we consist of stardust

stars tongueblind
stars dying
so unimaginably we roar
so gigantically we carry our equilibrium
that, when we are cold
we glow as we burn