When the black hole woke up, space blazed with light.
We dropped our regular orbits rushing to ring round.
Rows of us all falling down. What did my mother know of dark matters?
This was just a moment, not a universe collapsing. He’ll be home tomorrow.
She said, her light bent in. But I knew how to read the night sky.
Fly, child, fly. It urged me. A convergence of vein attempts
to staunch the growing pocket of darkness. Fly, I told my brother.
as I searched for childcare. What fools we mortals are.
Delays have dangerous ends. The hole in our world yawns, we bend.
October snowflakes sped past my rental jumping to lightspeed
as I wove solo between the glowing stars roving the streets.
Milky way and starburst wrappers caught in my wake
whirled away into galaxies still dark. Where to park.
Six garages scattered among towers. I skywalk
hall to hall. All fall down. I pull my thin coat tighter.
The northern lights dazzle me. Frazzle me. Tumble me to the help desk.
An ache grown in the night, groans the fears I fight, but to no ears in sight.
Tears choked my throat as I wrote my brother. What room? What floor?
What more, I might have asked. Would he know me? Did he still live?
Would he even want me there? See how I go swifter than arrow
up the narrow hallway, through to the neural ICU. A space invader.
The hiss of oxygen mask. That. Is my father. There. Hooked to tubes
breathing for him. I stoop into him, scoop forward to unwrap the gap between us.
X-rays shoot into place, brain scans, all life’s plans upended. Suspended.
The gravity of place, of this embrace after so much silence. I brace for impact.
A turbid tidal wave in my center churns. Then he turns and hugs me back.
Christiana Doucette spends mornings in her garden weeding because just like poetry, flowers grow best with space to breathe. She has judged poetry for San Diego Writer’s Festival for the past three years. Her poetry has appeared in anthologies, been set to music by opera composers, and performed on NPR.
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