aloft on these wings

aloft on these wings we are
movement itself, we are air, we are breath,
we are the beginning of breath, an inhale,
and even before the inhale, we are
the idea of inhaling, inklings of atoms
bending forward, pulsing, then shimmying closer,
and fusing. but even before that, aloft
on wings we are memory, an ancient twinning,
prehistoric, fundamental, artless
and so beautiful in our artlessness.
before that, too, we are stars, nascent light,
borne out of a dark chaos, a small jolt
of electricity catching fire. we are the first
luminescence, and before that, we are its
opposite, we are shadows, we are everlasting night,
we are permanence and wholeness and silence,
we are the first big thing, and then, before that,
we are the first small thing, we are microscopic,
we are two, then one, then nothing at all.

my love, aloft on these wings,
I don't know, exactly,
where it is I'm flying to,
but that's not the point.

Instead, I'm curving, like an apostrophe,
back toward earth, back to the beginning,
back inside the sentence of myself,
tracing the first word, cupping my hand
around the first syllable, opening my heart
to that first precious, infinitesimal letter.