print previewback KATIE CHAPLE
Black Holes Collide
It makes a short chirp, rises to middle C—a billion-year-old collision,
and it isn’t the golden hydra of enemy or the vinegar and salt
of evil, just the melding of voids into a larger void
in space—a thing we can only partially touch. What lies
in the center is likely not a question to be voiced.
We have ears where we only had eyes. That chirp
of gravity reaches the middle of the piano, the most pedestrian
of notes. That which binds us is part of a list of the minuscule:
the stretch of time and space—gravity’s noise
like that of a canary—barely a handful—light bones,
a heartbeat that you can’t hear, only feel—warm,
staccato against your palm like a flickering light
above your desk on its way to burning out. 
Black Holes Collide
Divination
In Trevi, One Town Over from Spoleto on the Train