perihelion

you are closer now
than you have been, all year.
but the angle seems to matter
and i am tilting away from you
and in the january air i think:
we could get colder,
couldn't we? if you left,
what if there was never any
equal and opposite reaction?

think of all the fields, the highways
all the cars, the old garbage in the backseats,
all the rough stone fountains and castles
the rusted bicycles, and the styrofoam cups
our grandparents drank coffee from at family parties,
all the bodies of grandparents, full of all the cancers
all the sands in all the deserts
and skyscrapers, and maps nobody ever used
all the stadiums and all the waters that could turn into
barreling walls
all the mountains, even sea mountains
all the shelves of sea life, dirt life, concrete life
a thousand times over

these things a thousand times over