i don’t know much
about science--but
you do, so when you teach me
the equations that turn the universe, how
tight lines of code compile
in twisting helices—it’s just sort of
numbers and stuff. But I think I can
understand the science of how you
are the amino acids in my cells
the building blocks of life,
how you are my
atmosphere, the PV = nRT
increasing the pressure, decreasing the volume
accelerated particles rattling against my sternum.
you are the current through my veins,
and I want to be the magnetic field
curling around you (like
the fingers of your right hand
winding delicately through
mine.)
and we are the fundamental opposites
electricity and magnetism,
science and song,
inevitably and infinitely intertwined, you are
my poetry.
you are the current through my veins
the moving charges across my
synapses, filling the spaces between
atoms with oxytocin
building like a charging capacitor
resistance climbing to infinity, grinding
my world to a halt.
you are my flux and I want to be
the current
fighting the things that change you
and together our wires will sing
the paradox-not-paradox of musical
tesla coils.
by the way, “the steps to making a transformer?
one, chop down a telephone pole.”
laughter punched out of me by
the force of you against my gut, I am
falling
and falling
and falling, and you
are the force of
gravity pulling me down, the
drag pushing me up,
increasing with every moment I hold you
force times time is your impulse
changing my momentum
the positives to negatives
velocity back and forth, spiraling into
a vortex that rips the air from my lungs
and leaves me

dizzy.