Tiny bits and pieces of something removed,
Artifacts that hint at a larger thing, a greater device,
A clockwork the size of the sun, perhaps,
Its warmth and fire generated by eternally grinding gears,
Shooting plasma plumes each time a tooth catches,
Darkening sunbathers a million million miles away,
A cancer machine crouching between clouds
Growling and gnashing its comfortable jaws.
These are the pieces of it that fell to earth,
Tumbling in the wake of David Bowie,
Granting us hints at its true malevolent intent,
My daughter scoops them up in the folds of her dress
Snatches them up in tiny fists,Â
Ignoring their heat and their smell,
And rushes to my office to thrust them into my hands
And insist that I string them into a necklace,
Sunteeth jewelry to impress her friends at school,
And I take them from her, one by one,
Holding them up in the light streaming through my window,
And they glint as they are reunited with their parent radiation,
I swear they glow red and gold with trembling frustration,
Yearning to gnaw through my fingers, the sky and space.
They’ll make such pretty, hateful things.