floating through space with no light,
no life.
Starlight can shine below the visual
threshold of the human eye.
As a boy I would watch Orion
from the outdoor patio
while my parents drank.
Eventually our own sun
will expand to incinerate
Mercury and Venus at least.
Of Orion the central star of his sword
is the Orion Nebula. Not a star at all.
I remember wanting
my brother’s eyes: a dark
dusky blue, with small flecks.
In the end Orion was murdered
by Scorpio, for boasting
he would kill
all the animals of the earth.
Seth in the woods.
he spread his hands into the light.like this
he asked.
handsome.
having no way to cancel the memory.
his mouth
young.
lacking pain.
Not always the look of your skin
in half-light. How you turn from me.
The living inside of mein half-light. How you turn from me.
that will break—part
from part. Now you suffer
my idleness. Is there
nothing so low as my boredom
for being blamed. It is your hardness
that attracts me.
poor little thing
you say. Did I call you out
only to hurt you.
Because you called
I came.
Now there is no return.
BC Griffith completed his MFA in Poetry at The New School, where he studied with David Lehman, Jenny Quilter, Jennifer Michael Hecht, and many others. His work aims to combine elements of structural experimentation with an accessible confessional style. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY with nine plants.
