I.
Someone told me once that clumps of dust
Collected under couches, chairs, and such
Are full of dead skin cells, the bits of you
You shed that settle onto windowsills
Like dew or late-spring snow that you are always
Letting go, letting fall invisibly,
That leave you even as you live and breathe.
II.
The mayfly gets one day for its whole life.
What is time? Study closely its design.
One day, the mayfly lives and then it’s gone.
The luna moth, all mint-green flittering,
Lives for a week. The worker bee gets two.
The people I have been could fill a room,
Could shroud my body like a swarm of bees.
III.
Someone tells me now that I am dust.
I am the mayfly and the luna moth.
I hear this and I think of worker bees,
Their whole lives flying to and from the hive.
What does it mean, to live? To be alive?
A life is just a day and then more days
Of shedding skin, of letting myself die.
In time, we choose to give it all away.