Astronomers Locate a New Planet

<sup>“Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.”

—Reuters, 8/24/2011</sup>

Like the universe’s largest engagement ring, it twirls

and sparkles its way through infinity.

The citizens of the new world know about luxury.

They can live for a thousand years.

Their hearts are little clocks

with silver pendulums pulsing inside,

Eyes like onyx, teeth like pearl.

But it’s not always easy. They know hunger.

They starve. A field made of diamond

is impossible to plow; shovels crumble and fold

like paper animals. So frequent is famine,

that when two people get married,

one gives the other a locket filled with dirt.

That’s the rare thing, the treasured thing, there.

It takes decades to save for,

but the ground beneath them glows,

and people find a way.

On Earth, when my wife is sleeping,

I like to look out at the sky.

I like to watch TV shows about supernovas,

and contemplate things that are endless

like the heavens and, maybe, love.

I can drink coffee and eat apples whenever I want.

Things grow everywhere, and so much is possible,

but on the news tonight: a debate about who

can love each other forever and who cannot.

There was a time when it would’ve been illegal

for my wife to be my wife. Her skin,

my household of privilege. Sometimes,

I wish I could move to another planet.

Sometimes, I wonder what worlds are out there.

I turn off the TV because the news rarely makes

the right decision on its own. But even as the room

goes blacker than the gaps between galaxies,

I can hear the echoes: who is allowed to hold

the ones they wish to hold, who can reach

into the night, who can press his or her

own ear against another’s chest and listen

to a heartbeat telling stories in the dark.