THIS METASTATIC COSMOS

My dad thought humans

Were the cancer

Of the universe.

He despised what we’re doing

To our only planet Earth.

He contended that,

If there are indeed other habitable planets,

We’ll likely find them

And fuck them up too.

He also thought the Universe

Could be a single Being

Living in a different,

Much larger,

Dimension,

And that, so far, we occupy only

A single electron

Of a single atom

Of that Most Singular Being.

I find that idea hopeful, though

Stephen Hawking says

It doesn’t work that way.

I say let Stephen Hawking think

What works for him,

And I’ll think what works for me.

Let’s see where either view

Gets any of us.