Orbits

By Timothy Geiger

Dust motes in the morning
light beaming beneath
the bedroom window shade
and a dream of Mr.______
(what was his name?)
my seventh-grade science teacher
already shaking with the ALS
that would kill him
two years after he said
“everything either orbits
or moves in waves.” He loved
to talk about Kepler,
and Tycho Brahe who lost
his nose in a duel, and of course
Galileo, who suffered
for the sins of proof. The walls
of his classroom draped black
with star charts, when the lights
turned out they glowed
like dying sparks.
Hanging from the ceiling tiles
a replica solar system—
spray-painted Styrofoam balls—
demonstrated eclipses and apogees.
One day before third period
we watched the space-shuttle
disintegrate on a TV set
somewhere over Dallas, Texas,
then we watched him cry.
Inconsolable. I’d forgotten that
till this morning when the dust
proved his point,
namelessly carrying me halfway
I never expected to go.

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Timothy Geiger has published three poetry collections and ten chapbooks, most recently Weatherbox, winner of the 2019 Vern Rutsala Prize from Cloudbank Books. He runs a small farm in Northwest Ohio raising goats, chickens, ducks, and pigs; is the proprietor of Aureole Press; and teaches Creative Writing and Book Arts at The University of Toledo.