Like an Avalanche
       

the black hole increases in mass, that's what it's known for.
It deletes, by definition, planets and stars. Also optic nerves,
Händel's Messiah, the twin Voyagers—in theory.

I once owned a chinchilla softer than dawn
that never wanted to be touched.

Having seen the past I can't get back to it.

Meanwhile, the steady accumulation of space debris
has occluded potential extra-terrestrial communication.

I once thought a hilltop grove of scrub oak, elm, and ash
choked by the construction of subdivisions to be
nature's last hope. As a boy, I imagined chaining
myself there. You'll forgive me if I'm wary of listing

what little persists. Not even Pluto remains
itself. Each body shifting red
                                                and soon: the last crash
of a blue whale's flukes. So we jettison the record
etched with our most polished pomp
into the cold preservation of space.

Thus, your photograph on my desk, though your name
from my mouth keeps whirling away
at impossible speeds.

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Copyright © 2022 Caleb Braun All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission