Radiation

I used to open my mouth to the sun
and try to taste its rays.

I’d learned about vitamin “D”
which comes steeping from the leaves of flesh.

and I believed, ever so gently,
in the magic of ancient things.

I didn’t know about the liquid
syllables of “melanoma”

or the cup and dagger dirge
of the pregnant letters U.V.

I knew it was warm and make
my eyes wild with red veins in pink space.

and that the sun
had been there forever.