Dark Matter Invisible to the eye, emits no light. Galaxies cluster and turn on hidden spindles. Scientists count stars, gauge dust and gas but the math never adds up— the missing mass like the missing limbs of a primordial creature whose shape we can only guess, the gravitational pull the force of a space after a loved one’s gone, how hard it is to breathe despite a breeze from a window. Days spin out weeks then months then years, expanding into the vast universe of grief. You search for clues in drawers, cupboards, pant pockets, coat pockets, boxes, bags. You flip through the pages of books, files, photo albums, again and again. There is her face in a frame and here pressed in a book, blue flowers with purple tips, and there in her careful handwriting a recipe for potato pear soup. In the sky, starlight fires through unseen energy. By the time it reaches you, some of the stars are still alive, some long dead— the difference you’ll never know.
Darlene Pagán
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