Juliet and Air

          Hang up philosophy!   III.iii

Juliet likes to lie in the warmth of the floor
where the sun makes a patch.
She studies the air while she thinks things over.
Maybe it's the somersault of dust, or
maybe the frantic light
exposing the churn
that seems so alive.

She makes the hairs on her arm
stand up in alarm like little soldiers
ordered to march straight off her nails.

She swivels her fingers around to palm
the flat of her stomach, then slide
along the new dent of her waist,
the slippery curve of her hip.
She misses her old body, so flat and obedient.

Words for this roll in her mouth.
She tries to fit her tongue around them, but they
just squirt through her teeth, like Jell-O.

The dust swarms like crazy tiny bees.
They are everywhere, she thinks,
whether I see them or not.