A Dance

Squatting, mammoth, titanic,
spinning in the cluttered void
of cold space, a star repels
darkness with a hum
and a flash and its infinite glow.

Then, a gaping black mouth
devours it with rubbing stress,
galactic tension, heat—
a cosmic killing, a blast.
Born in the infinitesimal stroke

of luck are the electron and positron,
heaving and lurching for advantage,
survival, denying each the space
the other needs to power a cloud,
a mass, a blob of universal substance.

Their unseen dance, like ours dear,
slaps and bangs together in dissonance
and fear. Our private struggle
fuels past the positive and negative
to the cataclysmic absence of matter.