Janet Norman Knox
 
Seven-time Pushcart nominee and finalist for the Discovery/The Nation Award, 
Janet Norman Knox’s poems have appeared in Los Angeles Review, 5 AM, Crab Creek 
Review, Rhino, Bellingham Review, Fourth River, Diner, Seattle Review, 
Adirondack Review, and Diagram. She received the Ruskin Poetry Prize (Red Hen 
Press) and the Los Angeles Review nominated her for Best New Poets. Her 
chapbook, Eastlake Cleaners When Quality & Price Count [a romance] received the 
Concrete Wolf Editor's Award. She collaborates with artists Anne Beffel (Jack 
Straw Foundation Grant) and Vaughn Bell (4Culture Grant) and serves on the Crab 
Creek Review Editorial Team.

 

First, let’s talk about what we know. We know dust

is roughly 95% human dander depending on the number

of household pets.

 

We know dander is dead skin, we know dead skin

is a raft of genetic stuff, elementary DNA, Watson

 

and Crick. Seriously, let’s talk

about not knowing where the exosphere ends and space

begins, the white and black of it, the line between them

and us or us and nothing.

 

Let’s talk about what can happen there, where

we thin into nothing, exposed to radiation, no pressure or friction.

 

I know most of the dust has settled, but there must be a mite of it

wafting where atoms speed up, escaping gravity.

 

Is that where DNA is copied, cloned dust merging with solar wind?

 

If only a minute particle of you would fall back

to earth, a new you might grow, you and your dog.

 

 

The author is grateful to Rhino, where first this poem was published.

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© Copyright, Janet Norman Knox.
All Rights Reserved.