for two weeks, baiting them
with their own bones, still hungry

we learned to separate, to swallow copper
from pennies, storing excess in our lungs

as if we needed to breathe less
than we needed to be metallic-full.

In this city the miles feel longer
than my bones know how to stretch—

I haven’t seen the stars in sixty days.
At night I dream I see them, my lost suns,

their subsequent solar systems,
past city lights. Now I know

they weren’t really silvered.
They were mercury-flushed.