A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud
-the PhD title of Brian May from Queen

I like to think it’s a story about himself and Einstein
floating in zero gravity, Albert sailing through the capsule

toward his drifting pipe, Brian playing We Will Rock You—
two wild-haired sons on a one-way mission

live-streamed back to Earth, voyaging into Sagittarius A
for the black hole’s ancient thoughts.

Albert’s all a-giggle, barrel-rolling like a seal,
while Brian traces Gemini with the neck of his guitar.

Conversations loop back to Freddie and the stage
of Austria, how destiny, chaos, science and dust

landed them here and there, which is far behind already,
the calm wanderers sailing on, delivering lessons

about the multiverse and the mysteries of stadium rock.
A riff generates a reaction, sets fire to sails in the bay.

An equation must be neat, hum with horror until
our Saviour wakes to the lowing of cattle.

The broadcast breaks. Our pioneers lost in data and debris
arrive at new Bethlehems birthing, being

torn from those that failed. Brian and Albert shatter,
their thesis considered, renewed—

a story of stars chewing story, earworms
creating the devouring hole.

Nathan Curnow is based in Ballarat, Australia. His poems have appeared in The Rialto and the New Nottingham Journal and his latest collection is A Hill to Die On.

Note: The phrases ‘two wild-haired sons’ and ‘the calm wanderers’ are taken from the poem Naming the Stars by Australian poet Judith Wright, first published in 1963.