Not a Jellyfish
Carol Dorf
———–after Marianne Moore
Back then we held the Visible
universe far above the Invisible
where dark matter leaves only gravity as A
signal to mark Fluctuating
attractions as particles decay into Charm
quarks holding onto An
other kind of dissolve far from Amber-
preserved moments of the colored
past. If an Amethyst
marks hopes of hardness we ask who Inhabits
the Universe when It
feels so empty of Your
presence as though a spiral Arm
of the galaxy Approaches
in hope not fire And
with our devices we watch It
as it slowly waves and Opens
Carol Dorf has received fellowships from the Hawthornden Foundation, Zoeglossia, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. Their writing appears on the Poetry Foundation website, in several chapbooks, and in journals that include “Pleiades,” “About Place,” “Cutthroat,” “Five South,” and “Scientific American.” Founding poetry editor of Talking Writing, they taught math and writing in Berkeley USD, as well as at museums and conferences.
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