and from whom does God commission light? beneath the sultry embrace of my mother’s fists, the buck’s torso shutters but it remains stagnant. its carcass trails the muted glow of her fingertips, and i wonder under which breath the beast first fathomed its own passing. i ask, and she clutches its horns and her hands tremble and her mouth quivers, and she whispers of the silent, restless elegy of heat escaping the corpse. truly, i doubt the burden algor bears on a beast.

before dinner, my father methodically strips the meat from the buck’s skin. mother finds comfort in the calculated shedding of being to bread // the systematic exchange of warm // to frigid // to sweltering beneath the brisk heat of the grill. the flame’s anxious tremble. the kindling forged from mortis. the outburst of the brazen body and its divine and magic hands. i call it playing God; mother calls it survival.

that night, i read that up to thirty stars explode in a given second somewhere in the universe, releasing enough energy to light the galaxy for weeks. i ponder what strange sort of magic it takes to devour a supernova, and after research, learn that a star’s life ends when it consumes the entirety of its fuel and is no longer capable of burning. crushed by the calloused grip of sulfur and iron, the star becomes so dense it collapses beneath the weight of its own gravity.

the day you died, 2,592,000 stars exploded somewhere in the universe. i ask God which one he used your body for. i ask God how it feels to be kinetic. he says nothing, but glows.