Catherine Tufariello
Chemist's Daughter
Thumping the dinner table, Dad would say
it too was atoms—massed in galaxies
made mainly of empty space. At night, the
bees’
drone of electrons woke me—a Milky Way
was whirling on the tip of my fingernail,
ten thousand planets dancing on its pale
half moon. Would bed, desk, dresser lose their grip
on the braided rug? Outside was empty
space—
dark deserts stretched between the yellow face
of the moon and our backyard, where I would slip
through glittering snowcrust, playing astronaut.
The world looked solid. It was wild as
thought.
From
Keeping My Name (