You told me to look the universe right in the eye
but I don't think I'm brave enough,
not quite yet, because all I am thinking
is about what you found when you looked
and saw the nucleus, everything-
all the feral electons- around it, and
the things you once thought you could hold
slipping away from you, from the spaces
hollowed out of you, until you finally felt it:
the emptiness of space.