bunk

AGAINST SCIENCE

According to the rigors of science, sex

every seventh second was what

I thought about. But that was all hokum,

bad science, so I’m left to wonder

what was I thinking when

I thought it was sex I was thinking

about. The six seconds between

the imperative permutations

of possibility and position

seemed an oasis from the dismal desert

of so much yearning, a Casablanca

of the flesh. Free to watch

a spider rappel the wall

or the shadow of a robin recede,

I did not think of your

hair or hands

or the temperature of your skin at dawn.

The water I drew for a bath

held only enough

for me. The book I read

distracted only time,

at least the six-sevenths that was not

devoted to burning

the way pious acolytes love the flames

they bear. Love, I hardly thought

of you in that other life.

I never needed science

to tell me that.

But so it has and while outside the sun

lengthens ever towards me

and I’m glad for its touch

there was romance still

at the edges of a flat earth

circled by the sun

and all the stars I once wished upon

thinking of you.