Each Is Her Own Center

A New Constellation--Marge Piercy

We go intertwined,
him and you and me,
her and him,
you and her,
each the center of our own circle
of attraction and compulsion and gravity.

What a constellation we make:
I call it the Matrix.
I call it the dancing family.
I call it wheels inside wheels.
Ezekial did not know he was seeing
the pattern for enduring relationship
in the late twentieth century.

All the rings shine gold as wedding bands
but they are the hoops magicians use
that seem solid and unbroken, yet can slip
into chains of other rings and out.
They are strong enough to hang houses on,
strong enough to serve as cranes,
yet they are open.
We fall through each other,
we catch each other, we cling, we flip on.

No one is at the center,
but each is her own center,
no one controls
the jangling swing and bounce
and merry-go-round lurching intertangle of this mobile.
We pass through each other trembling
and we pass through each other shrieking
and we pass through each other shimmering.
the circle is neither unbroken
nor broken but living,
a molecule attracting atoms that wants to be a protein,
complex, mortal, able to sustain life,
able to reproduce itself inexactl,
learn and grow.