The Third Gravitating Body, by Kelly R. Samuels

Here’s the plum he takes in his hand

                  and then the second. Beginning
to toss them from the one

                  to the other palm. Though not perfectly
round, nor as colorful as other fruit – the plum
is what he’s chosen to juggle
                                                        standing in the backyard
where the one tree was planted and has grown
for years now and finally borne.

And there’s gravity, we all know. Having seen
branches drop from the dying ash trees nearby.
And the plate from the table.

Up they go and round. And we follow with the eye.

And he speaks of the third – first, the one we stand on/upon
and the second, there, in the sky behind, casting
shadows, and then the third, like the moon, there but unseen.

                        And, now, there’s the unknown.
            Also, maybe, something like magic.

Up they go and round. And we follow with the eye
this third introduced. And we marvel. 

Kelly R. Samuels is a Best of the Net and two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She is the author of two chapbooks: Words Some of Us Rarely Use (Unsolicited) and Zeena/Zenobia Speaks (Finishing Line). Her poems have recently appeared in RHINO, Cold Mountain Review, DMQ Review, The Pinch, and Quiddity. She lives in the Upper Midwest.

© 2020, Kelly R. Samuels