The Diamond Glowing Heart I sew this space together. I have crisscrossed the galaxy and ended some dozen interstellar wars, piecing together scraps of collapsed nebulae and darning holes in the fabric of space. I have picnicked in the rainclouds of Venus. I dug a cave on Pluto after she was demoted and slept next to her small curved belly to encourage warmth and self-esteem. I have wrested the ruddy chromium heart of Mars from his cavernous ribcage, holding it slimy in my hands as I repaired a chamber. I have eaten space dust by the pound. It is made of ice and dark things. I fell exhausted toward you and find myself stranded on your earthen pot of a planet. It is luxurious and dangerous. I revel in your thick aromas and I sink into the abysses of your tectonic plates. You did not warn me of the vibrating blue-noted being that sleeps restlessly in your core, trapped under trillions of sea droplets. Never in my travels through this rich chilly darkness have I seen her kind. Now I know why you have not sampled the rest of your solar system— you are bound by the ever-turning blue-noted she that hums in her ironclad bed. You marvel at the pale stars out in the freezing darkness but there is a sun resting in you. I can see the diamond glowing heart as she shifts in warm nickel sheets. You have enticed me to stay but instead I see to it she gets free and will breathe the fertile darkness. I know the deep breaths of planets. I have heard the hearts beating and I know how they can be free.
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Natalie Korman’s poems have appeared in Willows Wept Review, The Wanderlust Review, Mouse Tales Press, A Handful of Stones, and Echoes, a magazine of Barnard College. She lives in Northern California.
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