Wrist Deep

After I learned that the universe is defined not
by circles but by ellipses, as illustrated
by Kepler’s second law of planetary motion,
the world started to disintegrate for me;
the orbits of stars around a black hole
no longer so simple as the lip of a cup
I might be twisting on a Monday evening,
(I used to imagine my hand a withered satellite)
the soapy antiquated thing slipping from my hands
and shattering like youth across a hardwood floor.

More and more the coins in my own pocket
becoming a farce, no longer cymbals clashing
the arrival of things undying; no longer my parents’
wedding rings (still perfect as Saturn’s rings)
an accurate representation of forever.

Instead, now, comes to mind the chicken egg
with its sinewy yellow sun yolk balanced
askew in its shell or framed in the uneven
sizzling white on the pan’s hot nonstick black.

The bent hula-hoop of my childhood;
my sister at dusk trying still to spin it
around her unformed hips, hips that would
later give birth. The oval shape of a child’s head,
the strange second birth of the irregular placenta
discarded into the stainless steel receptacle.

I place another round glass on the drying rack.
I place another round glass on the drying rack
and sweep up the remains of the broken
into the dust pan and gently place them, so as not to rip,
into the round-lipped trashcan;
gentle as Giotto may have drawn a circle;
gentle as I might have placed a newborn’s neck
into the soft and strange irregular oval of my arms.