Relevancy

None of it matters. Take a look at a contour
map or the flecked and dreamy dark chocolate

of outer space. There is no wrong end
of the telescope. Distortion's everything.

Your mom's a sea-chart of all the faulty
sightings your dad made. You might as well

stop reading. But you haven't. Now. Now?
Lurch of watch when time's emergency brake

gets pulled by squirmy teens or living
wills. A warped compass cracking at magnetic

North. South sins and eats its dogs for lunch.
Like I say it don't hardly matter. Neutrinos

parlez-vous and wet kiss strangers. Inside
you, more strangers: HDL, LDL, triglycerides—

motley visitors Hallmark can't target
but doctors drive home in supple leather.

Hammer of space, whacking us into one place
or another. Awl of time, ratcheting, puncturing,

marking notches in the belt tween Big Bang
and this starry evening's walk of hound.

Maybe matter matters not at all. Maybe
the rest—folded outside cells, at large

in the fog, scopeless to the bluest eye—
has a shouting chance if you yell quieter.

Copyright © 2004 David Breskin All rights reserved
from Escape Velocity
Soft Skull Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission