On my window sill, my grandmother’s Victorian
paperweight. Inside, one bubble poised forever at the tip

of a pansy petal. Other bubbles are galaxies peppered
here and there round her favorite flower, pansy, “thought,”

whose saffron streaks look hand-painted, floating
like a tethered astronaut in the artifice of eternity,

which I look over and past to mid-winter snow
sitting like bleakmindedness until, in a flash, light

rings, grass spurts, trout flash, and the field’s a razzle
of butterflies, sky a field of sunflowers, until stars

give off scents and the moon turns over, flips in
the lake’s shivering mirror, the same in all directions,

which I will enter quietly, steering stars aside, hang
weightless as a bubble, floating in eternity.