Photo by Brian McMahon on Unsplash
oh physics
oh physics
of warped gluons in the matrix chromosomes
molding children with necks and knees
disjoint and attenuate physics of the transport
of chlorophyll far more certain
than law or reason
and the stopped blood of embryos
stiff in the wombs
of dusk-colored sows electroweak physics
of augers and lock-nuts
the stripped threads in the brain cells of suicides
physics of palms scored with
the miraculous portents of scars oh physics
of the bent reflection glancing
from scales
woven down the sleek tails
of mermaidens
and mermen physics of stones in the ears
of children dead in the smoking bog
oh physics of the charm and sundry
flavors of massless quarks neutrons
and triggering wires hidden in the shopping
bag of the rabid terrorist
oh chromodynamic
physics of the broken thigh bones
stars burn into the graph
paper mapping the known galaxies and unknown
sing us the threads
of legends written by bosons twisting antigens
toward dissolution, recite
cautionary tales latent in the dumb gravity of acidic
striations, stumbling to cinders
short of the finish line
manifest for us the myths shaped
by the chirality
of fermions strung through the twisted dimensions
of mushmillions
rampant in supermarkets oh physics give us back
our names to us in the language
of plasma neutrino and strangeness tell us
the geodesic parameters within
the hocus-
pocus sea of photons we live
and lives us empty
and filled with the chant of cell star and physics
oh physics
Messages
Some mornings the mirror meets
me with a surprising message
in its face. The words run down
the glass, trickle into my brain,
to tell me I am twenty years
younger than when I went to sleep.
I look again and believe: I do
look younger. It is not a dream.
Somehow neurons babbled
the alphabet backwards sweeping
the letters and time in a spiral
and I am thirty-seven again.
Other days I wake to find the night
has triple-timed the clock, torn
the pages from the calendar
like a confetti shower of numbers.
My brain has leapt the gaps that hold
the century in place, and I am many
decades beyond my own good sense
and belief, deep into the ravages
of an age I never dreamed I would reach.
Most days, though, I forget my age,
the year now and the number of years
past have vanished, leaving me unaware
of the messages I see everywhere.
Elfie's Quantum Thoughts
Elfie tells me everyone has
got time backwards. She peels
an orange and the skin
ribbons a spiral, lightly
bouncing in space. Time, she
says, should be reversed.
The fruit flesh squirts juice
in her eye. Squinting, she says
she should have seen that
coming. She dabs lashes and
cheek with her shirt sleeve.
You know what I mean?
I nod, though I don't. She
eyes me, as if she knows
I'm pretending to. It's like
this, she says. Time's pushing
us forward when we should
be pushing it ahead of us.
I nod, Elfie bites into the orange,
I gather the peeling into a coil
like a sprung moebius strip.