Space Probe – A Poem by Marie MacSweeney

Dodging the draw and drag
of a black hole

our lens telescopes
through space

to fix the final,
hypnotic dance

of a dying star,
its two glowing clusters

flaming apart,
an embryonic

cell dividing,
but with the future reversed,

its white heat shivering
in the cold of it,

needing our eyes only to verify
its dark energy,

we are star stuff
contemplating the stars.