Supermassive

The telescope moves with the grace of your grandmother
pouring tea before the tremors. It was
a practiced gesture at the end of practice, perfection—lifetime confirming. Gravity
gone mad, the trumpet and timpani, sounding the gap, breathing, closing.

Your mother dropped a dinner plate
when the universe was young.
It shattered into trouble, shards in every gap
in the floorboards, impossible
as the staircase to your bedroom. Find heaven’s
land-grab through a worm hole? Like I was destined
for an easy chair? In that world where
I was blonde, where my mother was patient,
where the stove wasn’t so hot, the door unlocked,
and where we knew where the light switch was. All of us.

Research this: a group of white men at a white-clothed table. The data
“insatiable,” begging for it. Amuse. Bouche.
A group of white men and one woman with a bull-cut,
cut-crystal glasses of rosé and roses on the table.
“Drama queens,” says Tom, but everyone else agrees
or is giddy and all leave hungry, popping with a humming
frequency, what is it? Inconclusivity. We’ll run
more tests. She’ll profit. They’ll see.

They will not confess it generally, it will rise
like the timpani, litany, spirit and fairy photography, Lord, give
God proof of me.

At the heart of a supermassive
black hole there lies a singularity:
a place where the laws of physics,
chemistry and phenomenology
bow their heads and watch the steam
rise as your grandmother raises
the kettle, your cup, waiting.