Portrait of a Black Hole

Portrait of a Black Hole

So researchers finally got a black hole

To sit for its picture.

The victim of too much science-fiction,

I imagined something like a dragon devouring universes

Or a whale scooping up solar systems

Or a quantum  vortex enabling time travel

But when I saw the picture

It looked like a very large

Ring of fire.

Johnny Cash, you were right.

Dan Verner

April 11, 2019