Charlene James-Duguid’s most recent poem to appear here was “Albatross Hung There” (March 2018). 

Physics
By Charlene James-Duguid

Why try so hard to understand ideas
Outside one’s ken.
A star is a star, a window of heaven,
Planetary dust salts and peppers my steak,
Black holes are where I find my missing socks.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Mismatched things, that’s why, that’s how
My universe thrives.
Befriending scientists, analyzing Einsteinium,
I pretend I’m bright, as shiny as platinum
Or one of the elements I don’t understand.

So far beyond my neighbors’ thoughts
That distance need not be measured
In rods, bounds or meters, instead
It just sits there like a corner grocer’s aisle
Pretending the final frontier is all mine.

Until, in white, my keeper, the same old orderly arrives,
Tray, dish, knife, all of safety grade rubber.
Pushing it through the slot for the millionth time,
He says for the trillionth time:

“Crazy old lady, you still listening for gravitational waves.
Still thinking you understand God?”