THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.

Stars die, but no one kills them

Except maybe gravity

With which they struggle to hold themselves still

In their own astronomical spaces

Wonder why the brothers in orbits

Yearn to swallow each other up all their lives

Why these simmering surfaces become brighter and brighter

Only to inevitably return to their original states

Why some take a billion years to explode

Why some remain the dim stellar corpses of their former selves

Nothing kills these giant masses of particles

Only slightly younger than the universe

Except what always binds them in a lethal pull towards each other

What binds them till the end of their lifecycles to rotate in the defined circles

What slowly consumes every last bit of light attempting to escape the horizon