The Sassoon Collection: ii. A pickle and a black hole
Here is the second of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of 10 poems in his Sassoon Collection.
ii. A pickle and a black hole
Mass and form had the pickle, sweet, sour, tall and straight;
The round black hole collapsing still further than it knew
Made its longest shadow with gravity
A ghostly bridge ’twixt the pickle and space.
But stars, with their continuous day, must pass;
And blustering winds will stretch all gherkins
for which I’ve no measurements to express
the moment of conjunction,
a singularity with no exit
for stars and pickled cucumbers alike.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the second piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. “A pickle and a black hole” is loosely based on Sassoon’s A Poplar and the Moon.”
