heaven's gravity

In a J. Alfred mind (Prufrock is there—

etherized, we know, sequestering the dare)

I measure out life not with coffee spoons

but by the bloogs blowing by, the three moons

of Na-Nupp, which like Jupiter’s orbs should

have names: Jonathan, Joshua and Anne, good

shepherds of inertia—the shantiest

of all great theorems, and still Newton’s best:

that bodies in motion (or not) remain

always so, spoofing the legerdemain

of less-than-familial forces. We will

remain in such celestial space and still

(like Lear’s storm, still) avail our naked souls

to weather out residual, bedlam shoals

—those we know we should not leap. Yes, we know

too well the law and the prophets, and so

we adumbrate their future relevance

in all we hope to do, in circumstance

beyond our vain control. Christ, where are we

without the course of heaven’s gravity?