Space and time can bend into a vanishing point: we know this, or think we do. Light disappears like water down a drain; from this inverse star, no visions come. We have only the words, black hole, and the idea of suction, the horror of no-place and its irresistible gravity. But doubt still clouds the imagination, and we clutch at whatever flotsam our worldy experience can provide. Surely it is a portal, we say – the same kind of logic that leads us to become entranced by the orifices of the beautiful. How could such a perfect mouth do more than sip or nibble? None but the thinnest of ties can bind its owner to the earth. Surely this is no gaping maw, no staring eye, no ravenous sex. The gaze is hidden behind sunglasses, the flat belly flaunts its false window and our eager glances cluster, like the flies that crowd the eyes and mouths of starving children, walking in and out with impunity. But no, it isn’t like that. The blank at the end of space and time refuses nothing, like a bull’s-eye that’s impossible to miss. If it were a doorway, it would have just one side, and if it were a mouth, one word: Yes.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.