Hope Universal

What happens when a galaxy eats its neighbor?
the boy reads aloud from Discover online.

His mother, arcade queen of 1979,
pictures Pac-Man gobbling little yellow dots,

targets so flat and mundane they’re almost alien
to the boy, who navigates three-dimensional

Super Mario Galaxy like he’s an astronomer.
Or a Jedi fighter. A dangerous occupation,

his mother knows, and she worries: What happens
when a boy is addicted to PlayStation and Wii?

But the boy, still reading, stops on the phrase
rivers of stars to say

that’s nice, meaning the language,
not the aftermath of a cosmic invasion,

and her heart explodes, a supernova
flinging hope into the universe where,

elegant in black velvet and satellite bling,
Venus waits in the night like a sure lover,

winks her seductive eye
at the man he will become.