Red Shift

when we were five years old the world we knew was eight blocks wide wherever i was in the universe your voice would carry by citizens’ band

in years to come the grid that held our world expanded even crossed the state line you called my house on still evenings

everything changed the day i heard that the universe was blowing up like a balloon growing more quickly all the time destined not to pop but to dissolve that galaxies were devouring each other whole sending star systems hurtling into the dark in slow motion that from a distance the sun is a mote of dust suspended on a strand of dark matter an axon or dendrite in the cosmic brain reaching out in all directions and backward in time

from the window of an ascending plane i saw you opening the door to your car i wondered where you were going you wondered whether my shadow belonged to a bird