Rock and Roll Wednesday in the Retirement Home by Kik Lodge

A neutron star forms when

giant stars run out of fuel,

clump together. Exhausted stars, endpoints

of high mass, co-inhabiting.

Grandma knows about science,

has had papers published; knows that

if residents bind together,

don’t stay slumped, spread out, they create

gravitational waves.

When they form, neutron stars

rotate in space. As they compress and shrink,

the spinning speeds up –

it’s angular momentum –

the precise same principle that causes

a spinning skater to speed up

when she pulls in her arm,

or when Bernard, beneath the blinking

disco lights, lets go of Grandma.

In the main hall, breath held, all

wonder how this moment

might make the universe resound.