*

Speedometer decades approach escape

velocity—this seventy business is gape

of a vacuum—quick sixty too, too fast

a minimum, that couldn’t last.

And it gets quicker, time, getting to

the speed of light. And then black,

whimper of the bang way back,

an erstwhile sun night-absorbed and through.

***

 

The fleshy lilies dried up, turnt thin

and aged, like veined parchment skin,

two weeks of perfume burnt as they prepare

(flame-tongues the thickness of thin air,

what was time’s spirit, fragrant, visible)

matter for time’s magic act,

trick of disappearing fact,

subtraction from a past that’s got too full.

***