My star,
orange seeps through where your skin is thinnest.
Bright phalanges radiate your taupe freckles,
The size of them varying, the frequency sporadic
They float on Apollo’s exhales as dust.
Your palm that great big ball of fire,
The origin of Warmth, the center of the Earth––
In vein(s) the heat recedes and ebbs
But still keeps fingertips aflame.
That with which you gesticulate
Woos me like no other. Abyssal
are the swirls engraved––refracted, patterned, echoed
tenfold, metacarpally, and I find myself
here, lost between ligaments.
Smila Gaulkin is a third year BFA Animation and Honors student who creates and writes about the small, gestural, and seemingly insignificant. To see more of their work, follow them @smififofum and/or check out their website smilagaulkin.com!