Map of the Galaxy

Here is the record of the last puff of air 
released hot in the icy atmosphere 
denouement of the last sentient being  
cradled in the nook of Orion’s Arm 
Milky Way wasteland at the end of everything 
as the galaxy dissolves, denatures into elements 
 

Collapsing 113.61 billion years from the beginning 
bearing witness to cycles of life and death 
seedlings’ searching for light and warmth in the dark 
recoiling to the soil as the sun fades 
hearth fires extinguished as the universe  
accelerated expanding and abandoning life  
as every moment became the past 
 
We were left behind in the aging light 
the dimming before, burnt to an ember 
Can it know this is the last thought? 
Will it conceive of the almost infinite 
thoughts that came before or mourn
that no thought will ever follow?  
 
Perhaps it will be seized with  
existential dread at the horror 
or be rapturous with numinous delight,  
assured that in any number of  
infinite, finite universes, it is reborn 
or seek succor in the infinite continuity,  
 
A mathematical elegance that lives on 
infinite paradoxes ensconced in a perfect sphere 
transfinite numbers where the cardinality 
of the subset equals the cardinality of the set, 
enabling what is otherwise impossible 
 
Light will never be fast enough to save us 
from this dark fate, its tendrils too weak  
its reach falls short, its existence finite