MIT Poetry

Can't Stop Laughing

Anne M. Hudson

At first, I ascended next to Troilus
in the seventh sphere
looking down on our planet
with its great Wheel of Fortune
churning and crashing,
having my cosmic belly laugh. 
O Fortuna!  How you rise and fall! 

Next, I reconstructed my descent
into the deepest pit,
the one you’re not supposed to climb out of.
There was more than one pit.

Now that I’m up from the pits
with my feet on the ground,
I can’t stop laughing. 
I was supposed to fall,
and I fell. 
Rather, I was supposed to vanish,
but I’ve reappeared. 
I’ve reappeared,
and I can’t stop laughing.

Anne M. Hudson has worked at MIT since 1985, first in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and since 1998 in the Department of Chemistry.  In 2005, she received the MIT Excellence Award for her contribution to Artists Behind the Desk.  Her poetry has been featured in print and online in such publications as Wavelength, Poetry Repair Shop and 3rd Muse Poetry Journal, where this poem first appeared.  She is also cofounder and editor-in-chief of Facets (www.facets-magazine.com), an online magazine that has published original poetry and prose since 2001.

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