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Matter
Darling,
in France
some crank has whipped up
a black hole under
glass, and I worry:
what if he slipped up?
I mean, one blunder,
one mischance,
and the world will be sorry.
Will
one vast gullet
suck the clock-tower
sideways and pull it
out of time?
will police headquarters
lose all power
at the end of crime?
Will local reporters
somehow contrive
to capture on tape
the rapid advance
of absence, live?
Will nothing escape,
not even light?
Somewhere in France
it is not even night.
Sooner
or later,
for better or worse,
a Re-Creator
will stop and reverse
motion, revamp
lab and lamp,
earth, sun and moon –
possibly soon.
Alive
tonight
in Utah, dear,
with candle-light
and an atmosphere,
I hope my affection
never will shatter
or shift direction.
May such things matter.
The
Marriage of Peleus and Thetis
Death is an evil –
so the gods have judged:
had it been good, they too would die.
–
Sappho
Petty
as we are but more beautiful,
the goddesses could only squabble
over a gaudy bauble
and call us dull.
But
we the drab mothers, the wedding-planners,
stood aloof and shrugged at their bad manners.
The world flipped upside-down: though bound to Hades,
we snobbed Heaven's Empress and the fancy ladies.
Gods were like mortals, mortals like the gods –
we paid them back in condescending nods.
They
won all, though, and all we lost
by dying rankles
our ghostly bosoms: tossed
tresses, clacking bangles, dancing ankles.
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