V. H. King's Ink

staring at the sky: is it something 
I've always done my whole life? 
I'm not sure. maybe. probably, 
this time around—if I am indeed
as old a soul as people say. 

is that why sunsets and starfields
make me want to cry? i wonder what 
memories I've lost and found, nestled 
in cirrostratus whispers, wrapped 

like linen over a wound, eyes sun-haloed
and half watering, head and heart
crowned by rainbows that never reach 
the ground, shoulders studded and pierced
through lightyears of moonglow, Pluto's 
pleas still lingering in my lungs, begging
me to believe it's still a planet like the other
 kids once believed in Santa Claus.

ain't it some kind of mystery, the way 
i feel so deeply—spirit lurching through 
my body, like my tongue is hooked 
by some ancient truth as real as the iron 
in my blood, cast like a circle back 

into the earth, a fire in the hearth 
of a home I've never known except
in the spaces between the atoms
of who I could never be. and they 
tell me it's just being human