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.

——

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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