SONG OF THE BLACK HOLE

           (radially extracted by NASA)

You can almost see Vincent Price, black-robed,

hunched above the console of a jumbo organ

in the bowels of his creaky haunted manse; or

maybe a stadium of damned souls, strobed

in lurid red and howling nettle-robed  

as they plummet into Pandemonium, pore

and pith aflame. It's no troubadour,  

undoubtedly, this vast atonal gob.

As with the Roach Motel, we'd check in,

but never out—us or anything, since

it can swallow errant planets whole, and still,

however much the mass, can't eat its fill.

Though it's larger far than Jupiter or Mars,

we can barely see it, thank our lucky stars.

Rattle, #85, Summer, 2024