From a book in progress, "Riding the Absolute." First published in "Cumberland Poetry Review."

THE UNIVERSE

The universe is like my mother's cabinet,
fierce stars, not towels and bottles of medicine,
so thoughtfully arranged, behind the closed door.

The universe is like my father's employ, rough atoms,
not freight trains trembling past switch frogs,
space giving way to time, punctual as the earth
greeting the sun, the moon, the equinox of birth,
sliding backward into that split micro-moment
when all things converge, like the train that couldn't
then did in spite of all that death has to offer,
breathed life after life, with one huge breathing
to step over and across...like my mother's cabinet,
my father's train lifting away from the tracks with a sigh.

When you walk downhill, slow, pausing, a hand
on the gate, no longer growing up but older, it's nothing
like that. No, the universe is like my mother's cabinet
where poems are written & father's train goes to meet the stars.