Poetry

Impinging Against an Array of Very Thin Tines

If I could just touch her wrist, without

her grabbing my hand. Mama bends backwards,

tweaking the lawn chair, gripping

the arms. She says the stars are twitchy

sequins on a black velvet ballgown.

Mama wishes on a sequin:

“ ........................................”

I don’t ask.

Mama has a name

she won’t use.

The fat man that used to live here,

he really gave it to her.

Made her cook Steak-umms and watch his T.V.

One night, when he flips

through the channels, Mama whispers,

“.......................................... ”

He took the dog, left

with his names still on her.

Mama’s new man

has a red beard,

wears a black hat,

won’t change his underwear. He says: “Shut up,

I don’t get dirty from sitting in a chair all day.”

Mama can’t sleep. She says

stars crumble down at night, leaves

all those twitchy sequins on her.

Mama gives me her old jewelry box

lined in black velvet and lint. It winds up

in the back, the coil releasing

hesitant pings.

Producing and Opening a Very Tiny Umbrella

Things accumulate:

Breakfast bowls, coffee

mugs, dinner plates, utensils.

I can’t keep wishing

all day and undoing

it every night, curled into

my tight hot portion of space.

In another room, our daughter is

watching cartoons; thwaps,

plunks, zoom whistles,

her giggles, hover

in spring cobwebs.

The faucet fills the sink.

The sponge is heavy with soap.

A papercut stings.

Water will always run

through my fingers, until drained

of feeling. If I could

scoop it up, screw down a lid,

I’d know

where the tears went.

The dishes are done

and now you show up

in the kitchen, wavin’ your

deedle-dee at me! My face

is intent on nothing,

not a wish, not a dare,

I just see It dangling—

Someone else has been with me

in a room with a desk,

in a room with a bed, someone

who touched my face

and everything that was not there

was at least felt

with just enough air

to make a sigh.

And now your brutal

knowledge of me collects

in the sounds of your mouth

so fast, your words are spaces

the pain slices through—

and through,

I hear the whistling anvil.

Reflections on the Motive Power of Heat

Everything in the universe, except

the system, is known as

surroundings. Noticed from the street,

is my kitchen window and I’m preparing

a dinner,

for two, maybe

three or four—

The system is separated from

the remainder of the universe

by a boundary. Wedged in

a small triangle

of space, between

stove, sink, refrigerator,

I’m balancing on the most exquisite

clay feet.

For closed systems, boundaries are real.

For open systems, boundaries are often

imaginary. I am waiting

on the porch; it’s much brighter

out here than I expected. Why do I

remember the arrow of time

more often as raining, when it was summer

twilight? With our quiet evening voices

and fireflies, whirling

like particles of lust

in the slanting light.

The possible exchanges of work, heat,

or matter take place across

a boundary. Darkness is delivered

to the ground: it could not be stopped.

Headlights pass my driveway, turn

down the street; someone passing by,

on their way to contentment

or disappointment.

The potential energy of a hairspring

works in any state of oscillation.

Tap/up/tap/down, I’m standing here

long after the view has changed,

attached to a linear spring.

If love is to be done

at a finite rate, free energy is subject

to an irreversible loss. There’s nothing

here that I don’t already

know, like vivid snapshots

waiting to be taken.

As time passes in an isolated

system, internal differences

tend to even out.

One weird little horn blare

happens for half a second—

ice melts, diluting

the water in my glass—

sliding on a rough surface, slowing

down rather than speeding up—

all measures of how far along

this evening-out process has progressed.

A certain amount of light is required

for the demon to "know"

the whereabouts of all the

particles in the system. In the noise

of crickets and a wobbly ceiling fan,

our molecules combined. Left alone,

they won’t separate out again.

The curves of my body press

into the muscle of his, rolled together

like a set of plans.

Quantum, in Latin, means how great?

Or how much? There’s the curve of his back,

bent over to lace up his boots. I think

over time, ignoring the effects

of self-gravity, differences in

temperature, pressure, and density

I’d be forgiven.

* title based on an 1824 book Reflections on the Motive Power of Fire and on Machines Fitted to Develop that Power, by French physicist Sadi Carnot, a preliminary outline of the Second Law of Thermodynamics