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The Motor

The motor oiled, it seems,
with hebetude,
rotates its ceiling fans.
          The air hardly
moves for this
historic meeting.

On the rosewood table
between Kepler & Paracelsus
are two bowls:
one of fruit — papaya, limes,
mangoes, and oranges
               from the
New World,
and one of alphabet soup.

Kepler takes the earth to be
a lime. He has an orange sun.
Paracelsus dabbles in the alphabet
soup, listening.
Finally he says
          Ego- replaces geo-
          centricity:
                    no revolution —
                    simply consonantal drift: