Chemistry Notes on Attractive Forces
"Tangle" is a seductress
way of wording it.
It's more like a crash. Look
at the hunter-song, writing
with her hands, crooning about a tangle
of limbs, bodies, and ankles.
The reality: knock our bones together
until they crash into each other
with all the fundamental forces.
Bound in all the ways we can.
A room is a thing that holds
things. This is much like a person.
A room is also a locus of activity, again,
much like a person. There's an orbital
around your head, static shock halo hair,
where I might exist if I'm not observed.
Hold me here and I'll dance circles
around your heart. I pass through you
without touching at all, and
when I falter I make light.
I'd like to stay here if I can. I'd like that.
Once, breath
loved a spark so much
she drew herself inward
until spark tore through her.
This is how fire was born,
and her children alight in our blood
to make us hot and alive.
Once, wet loved herself so much
she clung to her body and wept.
This is how fog on the window was born,
why rain is so cold and close,
and how the pondskaters dance.
This is the same way they'll sing about us;
our old magic bound in the bones
of a world written in things
wanting to be close.
Nora Hikari is an emerging poet and Asian-American trans lesbian based in Philadelphia. Her work has appeared in All Guts No Glory, Feral Journal, and QAPoetry, among others, and her poem Deer-to-Fish Transition Timeline has been nominated for the Best of the Net award.