Afterglow II

The first night we made love 
you fell asleep in a scotch haze.
Your guitar was in the next room,
but I could still feel the vibration
of strings and fingerboard
against my thighs. Cosmologists
once believed there was no center
to the universe, no edges, no light
that could be counted on. 

When you rose to dress I snapped
a picture of the sunrise. Everything 
that should be known 
slept in the folds 
of our skin on skin
that first night: while stars rotated 
and the moon swept her craters clean.

We know there was afterglow
post-big bang.  But, who was prepared
for the molten dance of your face below me,
so happily liquid 
I now understand why telescopes 
are all pointing in the direction 
of a southern sky.

Forget global warming. 
Or super novae plotting 
the coordinates of primordial 
black holes. We added 
a few degrees to the tilt of this 
axis called rapture.  It tilts further,
breaking the heart of the sun
as it burns, infatuation bloomed
through tight-clasped fingers.

© Carla Hartsfield