Gradual bud and bloom and seedfall speeded up
are these mute explosions in slow motion.

From vertical shoots above the sea, the fire
flowers open, shedding their petals.

Black waves, turned more than moonwhite, pink
ice, lightning blue, echo our gasps of admiration

as they crash and hush.  Another bush ablaze 
snicks straight up.  A gap like heartstop between

the last vanished particle and the thuggish boom.
And the thuggish boom repeats in stutters

from sandhill hollows in the shore.  We want
more. A twirling sun, or dismembered chrysanthemum

bulleted up, leisurely bursts, in an instant 
timestreak is suckswooped back to its core.

And we want more: we want red giant, white dwarf,
black hole, extinct, orgasmic, all in one!


 =Tansy Mattingly