Why try so hard to understand ideas
Outside one’s ken.
A star is a star, a window of heaven,
Planetary dust salts and peppers my steak,
Black holes are where I find my missing socks.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Mismatched things, that’s why, that’s how
My universe thrives.
Befriending scientists, analyzing Einsteinium
I pretend I’m bright, as shiny as platinum
Or one of the elements I don’t understand.

So far beyond my neighbors’ thoughts
That distance need not be measured
In rods, bounds or meters, instead
It just sits there like a corner grocery’s aisle
Pretending the final frontier is all mine.

Until, in white, my keeper , the same old orderly arrives,
Tray, dish, knife, all of safety grade rubber.
Pushing it through the slot for the millionth time,
He says for the trillionth time:

“Crazy old lady, still listening for gravitational waves.
Still thinking she understands God.”

Charlene James Duguid