after D.H. Lawrence

shall i tell you, then, that we exist?
there came a light, blue and white careening.
the police like wailing angels
to bitter me.

and so this:
dark matter is hypothetical. know
that it cannot be seen

in the gunpowder of a flower,
in a worm that raisins on the concrete,
in a man that wills himself not to speak.

gags, oh gags.
for a shadow cannot breathe.
it deprives them of nothing. pride

is born in the black and then dies in it.
i hear our shadow, low treble
of the clasping of our hands.

dark matter is invisible.
we infer it: how light bends around a black body,
and still you do not see black halos, even here,

my having told you plainly where they are.

Copyright Credit: Keith S. Wilson, “Black Matters” from Field Notes on Ordinary Love. Copyright © 2019 by Keith S. Wilson. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press.