by David K. Wheeler

There are few ways to measure distance
at night but for the slight blueshift streak
as the cosmos tires of expansion,
starts racing back toward the center
and matter careens into place.
You alone are the sober astronomer
taking stock of celestial bodies and
which chalk outline each might fill
with the careful precision of a Tetris master
as extraterrestrial objects rush faster, faster
until you think you can seize the terminus but
find the universe more enormous than expected.
From here you identify other worlds but
still cannot know which collisions to brace for.

David K. Wheeler’s debut poetry collection, Contingency Plans was published by TS Poetry Press. His other writing has appeared in The Morning News, The Gay & Lesbian Review, TOSKA Magazine, Paradise Review, and others. He earned his BA in Creative Writing from Western Washington University, and now lives in Seattle.