I asked Zaq to show me where we are in the milky swirl. Here, he said, pointing to something

nebulous on his screen, and it felt  like searching a first-trimester ultrasound

for the heartbeat, pretending I saw it too, the tiny life inside chaotic dark. We are simultaneously moving

towards and away from a black hole at the centre of the galaxy. We are a bug

on the windshield of a tank gunning along the autobahn. Even smaller, Zaq says.

The bug that bug had for lunch, if that. It’s sad being the bug other bugs nom on,

but sadder the fact there aren’t any
others—no one else

complicit in our spinning. I used to lie
and say Zaq and I lived above

a nightclub. It was a thrift store and anyway
we don’t live there anymore.

When I ran out of clean clothes
I’d grab a shirt off the discount rack and smell

like a stranger all day. It halved
my loneliness, living like that.