Bounce

Today, they say, the birth of a planet
is taking place — evidenced by nothing
but bounce. Under a star,
propitious or not, a world is whelped.

Meanwhile, we are playing cribbage,
not realizing the dog has run off.

Bouncing starlight. That’s the clue.

It’s bouncing, they explain, off dust
100 times smaller than the smallest
of my thinning hairs. Dust so small
they believed it wouldn’t bounce.

You cut up a jack. Two points.

Your face is blank. Are you concentrating,
strategizing? Should I be concerned?

Are you upset that I’m skunking you?

I could say something sweet.

Maybe you’re angry about yesterday.

You smile, play a three. It’s all in my mind.

The newspaper says the most beautiful things.

“Planetary systems are blossoming.”

“Ghost clouds of the Milky Way incubate stars.”

Telescopes are spinning on satellites
above the lawn chairs in our back yard.

The newspaper deploys words I don’t understand.

We look, we listen, we deduce.

I make up stories in my head
about the stories in your head.

Sometimes I ask.

Sometimes even you can’t say
what’s going on in there…

Annoying, absurd, until suddenly
I too discover I'm spinning,
inexplicably
out of control.

Down the block, the dog
turns three times, curls up.

Infrared, ultrasound, coreshine.

Ghost clouds and dark cocoons.

The pre-embryonic phase.

(Photo of heartbreaking beauty
courtesy of NASA/Caltech.)

“We’ve found a new way to peer into them,”

an astronomer tells UPI.

“These huge areas where stars are born,
they’re shy and hide themselves.

We see them, but we also see through them.”

You hit 31 on the nose.

I’m lousy at counting cards.

I don’t begin to understand the odds,
let alone the moon, other galaxies
or wifi or my carburetor. The sky is alive,
yet we keep searching it for signs of life.

“Why the hell did we have that argument?”

I ask, as you count the points in the crib.
No reply, except the sun
shining through the ginkgo tree.

“I think, mainly, because I skipped lunch.

I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

Low blood sugar. Low self-esteem.

“I can’t make any sense of it.”