One of us photographs
flowers. Another is in
a death metal band
from Des Moines. One
has a dating profile—
username PlentyOfFish,
loves hunting. He isn’t
the professional go-kart
racer. The White Pages
say there are nine of us:
one in Beaver Creek,
and a few in California.
Here, with these ways
to contact each of you,
I wonder if a collective
accomplishment could
be undertaken—a barn
raising, or the toppling
of a regime if we were
armed. Maybe scientific
good would come of us
simultaneously living
for years in some space
station, we nine learning
to live without weight.
No doubt, we’d shake
hands our first meeting,
but, in time, would we
touch more than this,
fingers to lips or hands
through hair? Looking
up at the usless earth,
its quiet trophy rooms
and still lifes of lilies,
authorless, and women
and men who married
others in our absence,
we’d be its yawning
deities, a chandelier,
the stars children pay
to give new names to.
