Extend your hand until it touches
my skin or until the sand falls through
extended fingers, caught by the wind
and blown to the distant sea.

I have longed for your touch but I
understand it is nothing but carbon animated
by fire and blood and a cloud of angry
electrons, impossibly distant.

Some say we are nothing but stardust,
so why this keening for what is lost?

The fifth element lies within, buried
in the reliquary of my heart.