Photon Loss
Dedicated to states of/that matter
The insistent buzz and dance of smart phone
flashing its signal to the beyond:
Termination in progress. Click to accept.
Flick of switch. The kitchen illuminates.
Cold streaks of yellow spread in the pre-dawn
to flood a table engraved with the names
of those fortunate enough to have leaned
their elbows on its face-reflecting surface:
a palimpsest of entangled DNA.
Until the laser scrubs clean all traces
this cruel arborite morning and instead
spells out … what does it spell out? … the pauses
perhaps dividing stone-carved identities …
the gaps where light struggles to penetrate …
the absence that defines a threshold between
a table enlivened by life’s traumas
and one where the weeping of ghosts sucks in
every particle, every breath.
It is on pre-dawns such as this that we
delay as long as possible the pressing
of the “please respond” button. In the hope
that the message will re-compose itself
with the next passing of subatomic waves.
In the hope it’ll now read: Resurrection
complete. Have ticket in hand for pickup.
That Old Quantum Buzz
For F. whose love of pigeons is known far and wide
In the honesty of the hospital
bed, you can hear if you razor your ear
the buzz on the edges between quantum
particles, double strands helixing skyward,
dead ends, and life’s ever necessary
entanglements. A story encoded
in bodies hacked into place by the rough
stitching of time. The spark dims, flickers, lost
in languages long erased amid
catheters, drips, and the sound of air rushing
to escape—one last time—that worn-out chest.
Forgotten for a moment, in the midst
of non-Venetian masquerades and dances
of the pandemic, the automatic art
of breathing. The unhandled pump of up
and down in the mystery of self-movement.
But, almost on its last gasp, the body
arises once more with embers pulsing
from an elusive subatomic world
that refuses to stand still long enough
to be pinned. Where shining a light just leads
to more darkening. But it’s here you’ll find
the unrepentant energy to make
one more attempt. To take one final stab
at being the young man in a fedora
and double-breasted coat, striding off the ship
with a bounce in his step. To leave footprints
in the snow that point towards the sound
of incessant coos and fluttering wings.
From a shed that basks in the memory
of somnambulant afternoons stretched out
like forever lovers in wheatfields
overlooking that Mezzogiorno village.
It’s here, in the midst of strangers speaking
in symbols you can’t decipher—and you
crying out that idée fixe: When are you
coming home, oh daughter of mine?—that arise,
like random flares held down by neither time
nor place, the embittered words of comfort:
“You’re here wherever you are.” A sunbeam
focused on tinder hay brings out the smile
of unabashed youth. It’s a noonday flame
that wraps itself around the quantum core
and dances through a wizardry of strings
as long as no one dares to sneak a look.