Particle

Jessica Reed

 

 

Regarded by physicists as a material point,

            nearly hypothetical, real as an egg,

            composed of matter. So little spatial

extent: a place (usually), a thing (barely).

 

I list the problem’s knowns

            and unknowns; write velocity, position, the time

            elapsed. A particle’s motion is described.

Should I embroider an address?

 

A point whose position changes

            in space. Why crumble soil

            between your fingers? Moving

is a function of time. This pointed

 

fingertip.

            Imagine a tiny dot

            as a ship in the water, in black space

and sailing west to east, always

 

west to east. One

            cannot chart the motion

            of a body through absolute

space. Instead we define

 

the positions of bodies

            with respect to one another:

            a lover’s body, silly and holy

at once. You there and I here

 

and both here a contradiction.

            “I’m either very small,” he said,

            “or I’m nowhere at all.” Atoms,

thousands of times smaller

 

than the smallest

            light waves our eyes

            can see—everything

in an impossible radius.

 

 

~~~~~

Jessica Reed’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in North American Review; Bellingham Review; Conjunctions; Tinderbox Poetry Journal; Spiral Orb; Kudzu House Quarterly; The Fourth River; and Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing. She has an MFA in poetry and a BS in physics, and lives in Indiana with her husband and seven buff chickens.