Watching Ronnie O’Sullivan’s 5 Minutes and 8 Seconds Maximum Break

Red ball, black ball spun unerringly into pockets, 

Ronnie aslant over the table, knuckles 

cradling the cue, his body the golem of past

practice, blinds like Lucifer before being cast,

prideful, back among men. We don’t dare

fidget as the final pot draws closer,

the last ball waiting, like a sarsen on the baize,

for divinity. When the tap comes, we ease,

exhausted, as if we’d contributed somehow

to this miniature of perfection. What can we hope for now?

As the heavenly host found, after creation, it can only be

a devolution. How much worse, then, for poor Ronnie,

resting on the seventh day, awakening to the eighth.

We watch him blink at dawn and hold our breath.

When not making art, Devon Balwit walks in all weather and edits for Asimov Press, Asterisk Magazine, and Works in Progress.