Dust to dust. We become again that from which we were formed. Shall I devolve into dust bunnies? Am I a cobweb of airborne dust linked like thin strands of DNA lost up there in a ceiling corner? Perhaps I will settle upon my books whose spines would wait so long for me to give them supine relief. Some say that a home’s dust is made of skin cells peeled away from us so casually every day. So, I have settled into the vents that breathe air in and out of these everyday electronics, winding up on a motherboard or other parts to slow things down. I am settled too on the picture frames, and you may take your finger and rub it across the flat glass atop a photo even though you can see us just fine. Then brush off your fingertips with your skin’s friction to clean them: My dust ascends with yours in the air.
Ronnie Sirmans is an editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His poems have appeared in The South Carolina Review, Gargoyle, and elsewhere.
