Translational Velocity, Full Moon, Mid-Afternoon in Early June
It is more than how quickly these lines reach you.
It is that they move you. How through them
You change position in time. I used to think love
was the measure of an object’s rotational inertia,
Well not exactly in those words, but how things
in a given state should stay in that state without end
But I was mistaken, that measure is simply mass
as it spins or doesn’t, assuming further it has a center
Around which to spin and absolutely nothing
that could make it wobble or twist. Your hands
And wrist gently, impossibly, your neck and jaw
set the stillness spinning, under the hidden moon
And the leaves with their riot of turning stems
in the slight breeze and the alternating paths
They allow the light to the pavement
beneath the sycamore limbs, as we stand still
Moving on the inside, or move over time, love is the change
In direction or speed, love is the inconsistent
liveliness, the moving picture, projected on any surface,
love is just keeping up with it, keeping up.


