Dust to Dust by Quintin Collins
I am a million years expired,
and scientists chisel me from the earth.
What do they find? As they dust
these molars, do they know agony
looks like a head bound to split? That song
lived in my mouth. A hymn,
they call it. Phalanges clutched over my chest,
they name it a prayer, think I’d found some peace
in dying. They sweep dirt to discover
more dirt, more dirt, and then more dirt.
Quintin Collins is a poet, managing editor, and Solstice MFA program graduate from the Chicago area who currently lives in Boston. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Threshold, Glass Mountain, Eclectica, Transition, and elsewhere. If he were to have one extravagance, it would be a personal sommelier to give him wine pairings for books.
On why poetry matters: “Per Jericho Brown, poetry will tell on you. The world needs those truths.”
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