Juliet and Air

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.