Imagine an ant, you say
as we eat sandwiches
at the table, windows already December
dark. Imagine it at the end
of this placemat, the way it
would look out over warp
and weft and see an eternity—
its insect brain unable
to untangle each ridge of weave
or envision an end. You
brush crumbs off the brown fabric
square, which is now
space-time, and fold it so its edges
touch. We watch
the invisible ant step from end
to end. Then you let go,
and the cloth sprawls open.
Younger sibling of physics
and logic, of the universe mapped
out in ten dimensions,
you say that this is how we might
move faster than light, say
did you know black holes
would sound like static
between radio stations if we
could hear them? You
explain that scientists saw matter
squared and knew it could be
negative, anti, ready to annihilate,
its other. Is there easy
math for the world—
casually violent, reeling
up on the TV in the coffee shop,
scrolled over, regular
enough to warrant the usual how
did we let this happen? Alone
in my new city, I often feel far
away from everything,
a soft pang stuck somewhere
in the back of my throat
like the throb of prodding burnt
skin with my tongue. Tell me
again that darkness hums
static while it drinks fistfuls
of light. Say there’s evidence
that we might pass over
fields of life woven too wide
to cross. And, when we can’t
move, who is it that bends
to fold up the space beneath us?