Matthew Bruce

I am the millipede Mars. 
They colonized monuments 
of me before I dropped 
in skin. They crawl when 
I climb. I am millipede 
Giza. Artful in a sunset. 
Worthy of airbrushed shirts 
at my convention. A labia-
pink dusk, priceless. I sleep 
and legions of thread legs 
sew my mythos. I will never 
get the meaning. Brush it off. 
I am the giant buried in all
beds. Nested, pinched, I wait 
for excavation. Wait with me, 
bored with human stories
of has-been constellations.

MATTHEW BRUCE‘s writing can be found in West Branch, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, The Adroit Journal, and The Common, among others. Originally from Atlanta, he now lives in LA, where he works as a contract editor for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and teaches online courses for Arizona State.