I open the big glossy book
full of beautiful illustrations
galaxies, nebulae, moons and stars
cross into my view
as I travel its pages
I’m awe-struck.

In the black background
clusters of color and light
this page-turning cosmic flight
humbles me
a tiny speck
in the expanding universe.

Dark matter
dark energy
dot this inner space
wasted moments
in scattered remnants
undetectable by astronomy
or particle physics
in this collapsing sun.

Thank God for the stars
in my universe
who need no telescope
or cosmic observatory
to enter the inner space
to trace and find the heart
and grace
in this still expanding speck.

When the sun cracked
the planets exploded
each merely shrapnel in a second-
or like the gas giants
puttering into kaleidoscopic spirals
and waving a
symphonic farewell to the universe
grasping the furtive tails
of comets.

mercury shrank into a cindered ball
venus ejected its poisonous atmosphere
like a dying woman her most expensive dresses
mars spun off into the velvety expanse of dark-
but it didn't matter.
only the earth wavered, holding on
to its dignity. Its oceans spilled out,
mottled soup shooting from a bowl,
and its internal fires groaned like arthritic
knees.

In the huge expanse of space
no one noticed,
no one cared.

While she is sleeping
I send these words,
silent to her eyes but to the ears I pray they be heard.
I send them straight to her universe. My eyes gaze upon a starry night while she lay in darkness with eyes shut tight; I am there, though I cannot touch with my hands, I know she will feel these words hit her ears. While streaks of light flicker in her eyes, I am watching stars shoot across the midnight sky, thinking of which words to write,  knowing they will reach you.
Then I feel a slight grin appear on her face; falling deeper into her space, I could have sworn I heard her say, "I can hear you."

What is the matter with her?
Is it dark?

She keeps it undetected
Except for occasional silent tugs and pulls
Upon the large things in her universe.
Does it stream through your hair like the solar wind
Sparkling and glowing upon your brow with aurora,
Or emanate the blue of your lowest mood
A Cherenkov glow
As the unbreakable light-speed barrier is surpassed
In the medium of your blood-filled heart?

The dark stuff is everywhere and nowhere.
Never seen before by science
You hold it deep within you
Sheltered from prying eyes
Or hungry Nobel-seeking hands
Or the silent sentinel listeners
Of the radio telescopes.

She gathers more now,
Until her fragile, silk-over-bone frame
Fills with swirling black axions
Until they spill out of her eye sockets
Like the streaks of wet mascara.
She tugs and pulls at us all,
The em-ones and em-twos are unknown
But not the universal constant
Between human hearts.