The World in Miniature

             They woke beside one another. I touched

his face. Things that are over. Triumph, applause:

things that are weightless, invisible, both. Keeping

a secret versus telling a lie, things that matter

less, the more we think about them. Things like

how the word Arctic means bears nearby and Antarctic 

means no bears—so they say. Things that aren’t lies 

exactly, they just happen to be untrue. What Arctic

(from the ancient Greek) really means is near the bear,

meaning the bear-shaped constellation (Ursa Major, 

which is Latin for Bear, the Larger) that almost

everyone I know only pretends to be able to find

in the night sky. Antarctic means not near the bear. As in

safe, maybe; or just a very specific loneliness; or both.