Scientists say that
distance equals speed times time
but our universes collided and sailed
a million miles apart
even though the erosion of our hearts
was glacial – each breath a tiny wave
against the ruddy shore,
each heartbeat washing itself away
a little more.
They say that speed
is distance divided by time,
but despite the light years over this great abyss
that yawned open in an instant,
everything fell, is still falling, in slow motion –
snow disappearing on a black lake.
That leaves time to be configured,
distance over speed – I see
the days ahead unrolling before me
like a river, the space between
the me that I was, once upon a time
and the me I will be, ever after,
divided first
by the torrid spring-flooded current,
then the languid summer current,
then the winter river locked in ice –
who can do that kind of math?
The sturgeon move like shadows
as they have for a million years,
gray ghosts of what has been,
what is now,
what will be.
Halfway North 