chernobyl berry, & other radiation blues

Ashley Cline

i hope you don’t think me soft, but i’ve never known how to breathe
in space. it’s something to do with the lack of gravity, i think, or maybe,
it’s all to do with the science of hunger—it is hard to say, for sure. just as
it is hard to know the exact moment when thank you becomes i love you,

but my mother told me, once, that when it happens, you will know. she
says it’s something that you feel—deep—no more, no less—& who am i
to argue with the body? with this fragile thing that has held more heavens
than you or i can ever know—they say that a freckle blooms along the

skin from the very spot where your soulmate’s lips will find you, waiting.
& if that is true—this blushing birthright—then goodness, how greedy my
lover’s mouth must be to grow such constellations & call them human—

call them home. & this kindness is gravity’s greatest trick, yet: how the
stars sound like amen—sound like thank you—when they fall from your
mouth wearing my name; the way your mouth finds mine over & over

& over & over again, still. like ninety-five minutes over jupiter, like a
landing of discovery—you ask me how long it’s been since someone’s

touched me, here, like this—& my throat blushes lilacs in response.
you ask how long’s it been, & petals fall from my tongue—

a prayer.