clusters of galaxies whirl about one another, the larger pulling
the smaller apart, the greater consuming the lesser—here an elliptical
grown fat from swallowing its neighbors, there two spirals pulling the arms
off each other, over there one large irregular galaxy punching
a hole straight through a delicate pinwheel—
but when i try to contemplate these cataclysms in an objective
and scientific way, my mind quickly wanders away from the cosmos,
straight to the singularity of the slender long-haired beauty sharing
my bed, and all the ways in which we might resemble galaxies
when they cluster and merge and collide.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)