Friday, January 14, 2022

EXPLANATION

Have you ever noticed 
how electrons 
don't get dirty 

no matter how hard 
or fast they go 
careening around—

how photons almost never 
have plans 
for the future—

how bosons don't have 
bad memories, and quarks 
don't get scars? 

Nevertheless,
here we sit anyhow,
under the same old stars, 

unwilling 
to make sense of
what can't be accounted for,

without ever realizing 
what poverty
that brings.

It's as if, all our lives, 
we have looked 
without seeing 

that each part
individually 
was perfectly sufficient—

but, left to its 
own devices, never
meant anything.