Today we have another poem by contributor Jake C.

Papery Cassini Farewell

With six sheets of cardstock
my fingers learned you
in the lone winter of 1997
clipping, creasing, clasping
manila bus and high-gain scraps
assembling
like a cleanroom engineer
in an atmosphere of monastic air
during late-night breaks
from my college freshman blizzard
hiding
model and boy
in the fairing of a Huntsville basement
until by tugging circumstance assisted
I dropped you Huygens-like
into a shoebox painted cosmic black
displayed for boy alone
falling
artfully within
a long Saturnian spring we passed
clean through glamour’s halo
only to be robed
in the dust of stoic worlds

In the crushing summer of 2017
my fingers outlived you
wringing, riffling, wrinkling
model and boyhood
so they flutter tissue-thin
like burning leaves
in the angling winds of a northern storm