“Constellation of Masquerades” by Trenna Sharpe

Scientists have created Anteros out of a fruitfly.
A simple gene tweak and a bug becomes a god,
Irresistible to every other fly that finds it now.
This means nothing for us, for the gods do not exist
outside the stairwells of imagination, the whirligig
nature of human desire. We’re in love! we say.
We’re in love! With the open palms of history,
with the potatoes growing silently in the garden.
I could grow moss in my pocket, and never be alone.
I am lost without it! I am not lost. I am standing at a threshold
of mossiness. There is cold weather coming in either direction.
The wind curls itself around my body and sings
and it tells me that every chemical in my body passed first
through the body of a star, so I have nothing to worry about.
I was dead before I reached me. My spindly legs are the result
of the atmosphere, the rough journey down to the face of this earth.
I’m a crippled constellation masquerading as human.
The glint in my eye is more than just an expression. My sense
of direction is skewed for good reason. I’ll never find a point to end on.
Everything happens in circles. One day my life
will get caught in the orbit of another, and no one
will know which way to follow.