For ages church decree had made things run;
discarding set perspectives, as if they
were now, in fact, misleading, most would say
“was heresy,” for sure. Thus, anyone
who dared believe the Earth moved round the sun
might find himself locked up on that same day
and subsequently tortured. By the way,
recounting such misfortune couldn’t be fun,
at least for those who surely knew the rack
(condoned by educated clergy) was
enough to send a sane mind out to sea.
Like they, we, too, may doubt what we can’t see,
and swear our closest star is as it does:
once round our sphere, then, up again, it’s back.
Robert Burr received his B.A. in English Literature in June of 1998. He studied under William Matthews and Marilyn Hacker and left in 2006. Mr. Burr taught Freshman Composition at several CUNY schools between 1999 and 2008. Chapbook: Trading Bits of Dream, Ridgeway Press
