I read

about two black holes billions of lightyears away

                                              Destined to collide

Thousands of years after

Our own destinies have been fossilised

and forgotten in plastic tombs.

The unaccounted-for time tucked

between hyperlinks  

Like rogue titles                                on library shelves

Surveyed worlds where the two hadn’t set on their course, yet.

The writer’s back tested the limits of the backrest

            Half expecting              to be flung through the window,

Past the jumble of letter and number combinations

That christen celestials.  

Death dance / dance of doom / dance macabre.

The poetics of anticipation expounded over billions of lightyears

Find kinship in the slow sips to the inevitable emptiness

Of the coffee mug by the desk.

                                    The writer resumes to meet the deadline.