by Alejandro Escudé
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| The mystery at the heart of the Milky Way has finally been solved. This morning, at simultaneous press conferences around the world, the astronomers of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) revealed the first image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. It’s not the first picture of a black hole this collaboration has given us—that was the iconic image of M87*, which they revealed on April 10, 2019. But it’s the one they wanted most. Sagittarius A* is our own private supermassive black hole, the still point around which our galaxy revolves. —Scientific American, May 12, 2022. |
It’s an engine,
the scientists say,
a black Mustang
parked at the curb
in front of our house,
the Milky Way,
I’ve been there,
lightless, eating up stars,
surrounded by fire
that cannot reach me,
speed of light,
the scientists say,
why the image is blurry
yet crisp
as can be,
such are the rules
we live by, the movie
inside the maelstrom,
the Papi
and the Mami,
a solitary mitt laying
centerfield, a baseball
tucked inside
twirling
as the cradle
of life in the universe spins
26,000 light years away,
humans beings, Lucy
to the aliens, biological
Big Bang, Adam
and Eve to the bug-eyed
Greys
and the lizard man
who staggers out of an oval door
of a saucer-metallic
flying saucer,
time falling into time,
a spot on a boy’s foot,
beach tar, sound of waves,
salty air.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.