What the Universe Said

Sandy (Olson-Hill)

addressing the dead while the World opened 

skin to layer you in mystery & space. Face 

after face, the heart has stories, place, provisions, living

water if water were, if you were not

still under stone. & Texas terrain & Sunlight

bent under the strain, under the stain of May.

from Uvalde Classrooms across the grass, 

are doors to desks to floors to halls. 

In hemispheres that call no more, war 

tall branches yield, nor more, but raise their

root to fist for every spun from breath & Sun. 

For Mars is packing sulfide ore and Jupiter

is solar wired. Strategize to do away,

said the planets to the prey

Don’t sleep the seas, but cast and trawl where rivers reap &  

pluck from firmament to hail to sleet to flow, 

where methane rains where cosmic rivers bank 

and bend the planetary heads to matter slain & see 

other worlds embrace the weight of Jupiter 

between your dreams. What could’ve been

won’t again. We ain’t got no answers. Here 

is none. But ante up, we’ve got your 

fear, fallen in order. Falling

is water. What is left. What is here.

A lie, a thief, the exodus of God to grief.