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PTOLEMAIC UNIVERSE
After a full life as a scholar and economist
and jurist and physician and astronomer,
Copernicus retired down to Sarasota. Some mornings
he would take the bus to the beach, walk
across the sand, and gaze out at the quiet
waters of the gulf. Usually, before heading home,
he would treat himself to one scoop of mint chocolate chip
ice cream, though sometimes he would opt for French vanilla,
and once, on a whim, he tried butterscotch macadamia,
which it turned out he didn’t like. And so
the days passed. Never once did he feel the urge
to sneak into a local bookstore to see if they had a copy
of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium,
and never once did he venture onto his condo balcony
after dark to study the stars. He was past all that.
Each remaining year was his. Of course he knew
that some claimed he had ruined things, that Gone
was our Eden, our Privileged Centrist claim,
our Piety, our Poetry. He wasn’t impressed.
Didn’t his bus driver take him daily to the beach?
Didn’t his gulf spread out sleepily before him?
Didn’t he buy his ice cream cone, and lick?
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