Gravity

Careening through dust and void
hurtling and spinning all wobbly specks,
mere specks, scattered like so much flour
onto surface before the dough is kneaded.

Per·func·to·ri·ly, out of habit
And in the rhythm of the the baker working the dough,
dashing out fingerfuls of flour onto wood worn smooth
before knuckling into the soft mass
leaning weight into it and rolling the shoulders

Dusted just like that

I watched the bread that would be crust form as though by magic.
Protein chains forming and tangling and setting into shape
to pass from one's hands into another
as something made and crafted according to a pattern
determined long ago.

"What are you staring at? Pay the man."

It was just pizza after all and
we shared it by the window bundled into winter clothes
with mittens removed and placed beside us,
our mittens touching as though we were still holding hands.
She knitted them as a matching set of four; his and hers, left and right.
We ate and the sleet came down
and the world was grey and spinning madly through the deep,
the bare and dusty unknowable deep.
Less than a blink - less and shorter than that -
I was there with her then and we ate
and the rock turned quickly beneath us;
tumbling, clinging to us as we cling to it.

That's gravity for you:
everything reaches out for everything else.
Stay and hold me.
That's gravity, right? Don't go away.
The sun does this. And the moon, and the dust.

Of course the bigger you are, the more you pull.
But everything pulls in some small way.
Please stay here close to me, right?
This thin little smear of life on the falling rock,
like grease on our fingers, thinner than even that.
And we cling to the earth and it clings to us.
It's gravity saying come closer, closer still,
all of you, gather around me and stay,
why are we so scattered apart and flying apart?
Please don't leave me alone.

Rain on the glass, neon in the window, clouds overhead
We eat together and the flesh works our little speck lives
a little further along, a little slower, a little older, a little less efficiently.
The errors accumulate, bones brittle a little more,
the brain fogs a little bit.

In 30 years, if we're lucky, we'll still be together,
aching and pained on raining, sleeting days like this.
Joints that long lost their elasticity will suffer the changing pressures
and it will ache for us to be out on miserable rainy days.
Winters will gnaw at us a little more intently.

There'll be love there, still,
mixed with simple familiarity
and the shared experience
and routine
of two people who decided to hold hands until this rock spins itself out;
routine slowly going erratic and slowing and wobbling
like tops spinning out their energy and starting to shudder,
skittering to a sudden, clattering stop;
finally, endlessly calm and still.

And as for the planet, in a little while yet, it too will be consumed by the sun. It won't make any sense, but it won't matter either. Do you know how old Old will be by then? Yeah, sure, years from now, eons from now, supernova eventuality, but come on, nothing lasts forever. And so gravity is something alone reaching for everything around itself saying, "Don't go, come here and stay with me until this is over." 60 years? 70 if you're lucky. maybe 80 if you don't smoke. 90 if your genes are right and even then the earth itself will die eventually. Right out from under your feet.

The sun pulls at those passing comets so bright and in a hurry, and the earth pulls at the slowly receeding moon, and the moon pulls at the earth. And the trash in the gutter pulls at Mars and that new planet nobody knew about and still has trouble accepting, even that thing way out there, it's pulling at you too, and your mother misses you and wishes you'd call more often and she's pulling at you too, to come close and closer still and to stay. All the things you don't know about, will never learn about, and will never do or see in your life, those things are still pulling at you too, in all directions, just as you're pulling at everything in return. And all those letters you wrote and never sent, they pull at you and you pull at them. That's gravity. Gravity is that ache for connection made real, and that's just the way it works. It's not magic - I don't make this stuff up.