POEM OF THE DAY BY THEODORE WOROZBYT

Neighborhood Light

Like the rim of the known
universe expanding into the dark
non-edge of space,

the blurred knots
of the local clusters dragging
apart, drifting undone,

the golden arms
of each galaxy opening to the slowing
original spin,

like the loosening grip of each star
on each rotating body
revolving around its cooling center,

like the bodies themselves,
planets grinding down on imaginary
axes, each year a linear fraction longer,

like the light that pierces
the frail shell of atmosphere
on this planet, the light of dead stars,

like the expanding rim, the stars at the boundary
rushing into nothing, their light moving in,
moving out, light we'll never see,

like that light, the rays never entering
this sky, this sky a few molecules poorer
each lengthening day,

like the swell and ebb of the living
mass of species, emblems twice withdrawn
to abstraction by the reductive statistics of speech,

like the Dead Sea, the briny death
of its wet iconograph, the brilliant shapes
of crystal driftwood on its shores,

like the blind white fish of the caves,
like the song of the snail darter,
like the fish living on the edge

of the fresh, blinding hot currents
pushing into the edge
of that sea, every sea becoming that sea,

we come apart each night in the incandescent room,
untangling arms and thighs. How lovely,
the rich sweat of our finished work,

the bound salt that binds us
to the dim light thrown through the window:
starlight, moonlight, the light from this quiet street.


-Theodore Worozbyt