Sublunary OrbitGolden light of sunset
fills my apartment
As you swim in your oceans
of galaxies
and ghosts.
We are all stardust—
to stardust we return
home.As your galaxy splashes galaxies,
fruits more of you,
I wonder what your stars will look like
experience like
in the ever-evolving Milky Way
of you.
Still, I see your constellation
because we helped make it,
and you showed me how brilliant
you burn.And a thought arises—
always arising—
forever arising
into This Sphere
with no point
only pointing
to love,
friend,
care,
real.—
Stars in the stardust,
stardust to stardust:
I love my friend
Goodnight to my friend.
Ko Hinemoa, ko ahau.This desert is my Lake Rotorua
and I swim across it to find you.
The world is full of hate
and beauty,
and a rhythm I can’t see floats from somewhere acrost it.
I scare your water-bearer,
by behaving as a ghost,
and draw you in
to me,
hidden as I am in your waters.
Because even before Blockbuster,
I sat on stone and looked at stars
and wondered where the rhythm comes from.
Because love is as much for adults
as it is for children;
no matter what they try to sell you.
Sitting between stardusts
I knew.
this singularity is an illusion
and one way to prove it
would be finding the someone
who could turn into a key
and destroy the glass
holding this spirit hostage
to that illusion.
Not “one soul, two bodies” white people bullshit,
but a door to the stream of us, all—
the marker to keep it open.I don’t know the other types of stories:
I don’t know what each needs
to shatter the prison for good.
But I believe this is mine.Ko Hinemoa, ko ahau.I swim across this lake,
I will find the rhythm.
SkyfallMy fingers smooth through red silk soil,
granules bustling into cloud,
light refracting this color I know
like my own blood.
The sun makes it so,
and I tell her ‘thank you’
from all of us
back home.Though I wonder,
standing here
as I am,
what that word still means—
what it will mean
as my hand, tinted red with Sol,
reaches to open the gateway.I was told your name is Skyfall.I wondered then if you brought the sky to home,
or let us fall upwards into the one we left long ago,
before memory—
when my words were still implosions
and fingers so god-willing Black
they caressed even the light
into calm, into quiet.
in velvet strands
time unspools
a wasted wreck
lonely, beaming
clinging for
the curtains’ unfolding
into dust
that coddles life,
to alight names
we
behind our delicate fences
vainly tape
to wonder
Por que no Los dos?It feels Claustrophobic
The slant of the walls
As you see them,
Under me,
The weight of the feelings
I build.Your spine circles round
The bannister I climb
Down and out
Of your
cor
—-a
—-zón.
(I can’t stomach that in english)
((I feel)).I have so much time to think
On the way down.
I’m a thief
I think
Who takes so much
Without asking
Or permission;
So much pie when there was
Just berries set out.
I thought the words and the
Actions
Were putting something together
I was a part ofI misunderstood
Or daydreamed
And now I feel
Small and weird
(I’ve always felt small and weird)And too much
Somehow
Also.So who did this.
What makes me feel this way?
Is it you
And your words?
(Or lack of them?)
Or me
And my bullshit
(Or old shames?)Anyway,
the view from this spine
Becomes bad
And undesirable.
Or, I don’t know,
just this poem.
Chungking 王菲Neon lights
In the dark
Tiny teeth
Straight like a croc
Cute & elegant
Small face Perfection
Moving too fast
To be seen but in streaks
Glimpse you only in indie
FlicksI wish I had your elegance
And short short hair
I love girls
Who are beautiful like boys
ButWhat was it like thriving in the 90s
In Taiwan—
Hollywood adjacent
Angelface
Aging gracefully
I wanna be a pop star
I wanna be cool
&
Effervescent
Express thatNot told in work meetings
To be more confident
And signaled on bad dates
I’m too confident
The world is a shopping mall
I’m always being soldAgainst myself
So I buy
Something else
Like maybe you, a dickhead.
Or this boss. Or this lipgloss.Or Chungking.What do you buy,
Faye?Does it tire and bore you
too?
”man’s importance in the world”there is a midnight purple hiding in between the pine’s living needles
it beckons me in
the air sings sweet softness
temperatured like a perfect pillow
it calls to mehears me
insidedo you remember when you read steinbeck
and he said something about the glorious loneliness of a man’s mind?a tree branch molting inside of me into something else
a winter of darkness and light
whole oceans moving inside of me
because of this momentlooking at you,
the world.
Michelle is a librarian and poet currently living in Seattle, Washington. She’s been a non-profit coordinator & photographer working with organizations such as NASA and JAXA, among others. Michelle co-authored the academic paper ‘Taking Space Cafe Global’ delivered at the 2019 IAF Space Outreach Symposium. Please reach out for a free digital copy.©2026 Michelle Oliveira Eggers