for Naomi

to its natural state.

Rust, oxidation, salt hastening

its back, back, back to earth.

Bone is less exact.

Fractured, yes, even broken,

it returns: bone to bone,

parts to whole.

It is written

dust to dust.

So it is with bone,

shards turn porous,

devoured by bacteria,

time, our fading memories.

Shattered, however,

it becomes metal

not via its own volition,

but surgical intervention.

Carbon composite,

eventual, actual stardust,

the stuff of which heavens are made:

one moment expanding nebula,

same moment elderly mother’s broken hip

all night on cold linoleum —

she didn’t want to be a bother.

Her stardust does not heal like it once did.

Her mind does not recollect like it used to.

All that iron, zinc, copper, nickel trace:

once loamy soil, then homegrown kale,

then heart, tendon, lung, bone.

None of it, what it used to be.

Until she reverts back

to her natural state,

Alice remains.

Turns out we are all

scatter and combine,

the dust she once was,

is now, ever will be.

The time will come,

when you will grieve,

your tears will make mud,

your fingers smearing

the stuff of her body,

the life of yours,

the whole of the universe

on the wall of our mutual world,

marking our coming,

marking our going.