Vertical Line .831 mm Thick

(Photo of street art by MissMe – Montreal International Graffiti Convention 2014)

 

It would take a million earths, they say,
to fill up the volume
of the sun
– but has anyone actually tried it?

If a few earths had a self-inflated spin, say,
on their own life-generating significance
might they have more density?

If the home health care worker
awarded some earths an eight
on the junk hoarding scale
– would a million still fit?

Would cramming all those earths
against its giant mass
cause the sun to supernova?

If some earths practiced “mindfulness”
would they have a better chance
of staying in orbit?

Would extra-terrestrial statisticians
require so much empirical evidence?
And what would they make
of the Pioneer 10 Plaque?

If the woman etched
on the Pioneer Plaque
had been depicted with a vulva
might it explain how
one of the billions
and billions of earths evolved humanity?

Perhaps if she kept leaning
toward the man
who already greets other earths
with his upraised arm
and opposable thumb
and genitalia intact?

If Alfred Stieglitz asked his wife
to represent her gender for Pioneer 10
would she have etched the vertical line
in the center of her open iris?

How closely do astrophysicists
study Classic Greek statuary?

If Diego Rivera asked his wife
to represent her gender
would she have placed the vertical line
horizontally across her brows?

If Emily Carr represented herself
on Pioneer 10
would her totem refuse to lean?

Would cosmic marble dust
remain on her blouse
when Camille Claudel
etched her pioneer 10 female?

Would Rodin brush away the evidence
And claim the work his own?

Is “absence of evidence
evidence of absence”?

If a million Artemesia Gentelschis
painted a million defiant women
would any escape
the sun’s experiment?

Imagining space travel
imagining extraterrestrials
imagining gender bias on one earth
four hundred years hence
– would she have insisted
on drawing the line?