Walnut

Science says
the smallest black hole is 24 km across.

      This black hole is really pushing the
      limits, says Nikolai Shaposhnikov of
      NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
      in Greenbelt, Maryland.¹ 

The smallest black hole I’ve known
was the size
of a walnut – how doctors described the gland
harmless and mundane
edible.

“A fucking walnut,” you said, because it wasn’t.

Black holes tend to reside
at the centre of things
galaxies
your sacrum, your hips
where pain radiated
in ever-expanding swaths.

300 mm across
you circled the cancer
like a boxer in the ring
we circled you, tighter
as the orbit of your disappearance
widened
rallied, cheered, celebrated every time
you took a blow standing.

The thing with black holes
is nothing escapes.

Science knows:
      how to pack hands and feet in ice
      to keep fingernails and skin intact
      how to destroy one cell
      and not another
      how moons circle planets
      and planets circle stars
      that black holes can work both ways.

The smallest black hole I’ve known
bound us into a dance of make-believe
some of us called hope.

We fed your faith
watched you disintegrate

       So yes, black holes do die,
       and they do so
       when the theories of the extremely large
       come together
       with the theories of the very small.
       They do so slowly,
       and then all at once.²

________________

¹ Shiga, David. “Universe’s tiniest black hole discovered.” New Scientist, April 2008.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13574-universes-tiniest-black-hole-discovered/

² Thomas Nguyen. “If a Black Hole is a Dead Star, How Does It Die?” RealSization, May 24, 2013.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/realscization/if_a_black_hole_is