There between the stars
are lights from afar
stars themselves
blackened by distance
dulled by time
and lost to naivety.

A certain level of corruption
foreshadows their revelation
some darkness within
siphoned from the void without
to leave these distant galaxies gasping for air
with us greedily grasping at their corpses
and calling it power.

The audacity.

A corpse can’t smell a corpse through its fetid remains.