“Astronomy”
by Albert Goldbarth
It dies. And a gazillion years in the future
the sight of its dying reaches Earth.
— Computed in dinosaur years, that’s three days
from the brain’s death to its being recognized as dead
in the far frontiers of the tail.
Night. A party. “Come out here for a minute.”
Dina told me: she’d miscarried. But
her body hadn’t registered that yet, it kept
preparing for a birth. And so we sat on the porch
in silence for a while, in the light of that star.