Edited by Dava Sobel

FRACTAL

If I were made of
homunculi

the way a cauliflower
head

is made of
little noggins

would I be gorgeous

like this green one—
a field of rockets

each nippled with
hard cones?

IN PRACTICE

For Carlo Rovelli

Heat cannot pass
from a cold body
to a hot one.

That's it.

That's the one law of physics
“that distinguishes the past
from the future”

with its clutter
of burnouts

when what matters
is who's wearing
the kitty tail
right now!

     Who thinks she knows
     where meaning is.

Just wait.

“Times are legion, a different
one for every point
in space”

no matter how close;

     how lonesome

Editor's Note: A kitty tail worked its way into this poem when the poet's granddaughters, arguing over a cat costume, interrupted her reading of theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time, excerpts from which appear here in quotation marks.