She Feels Like Air

Suddenly she's in my arms, briefly,

this woman I don’t really know at all.

She feels like air,

by which I don’t mean

she feels like nothing.

She feels like

atoms whirling, sunlit dust motes.

She feels like air,

by which I don’t mean insubstantial.

We’re touching,

yet somehow, we’re not.

We’re sort of orbiting around each other,                   

tiny mortal planets

filled with blood instead

of boiling liquid iron.

I’m afraid we’ll collide,

afraid there’d be such a bang

it would cause our ejected particles

to explode,

changing us,

and causing us to make a new star,

which would be a bit irresponsible.

So, I am responsible.

I maintain a weakly

magnetized state,

like a clump of iron filings on a sheet of paper,

making and re-making patterns 

with every breath I take.

Nothing too cosmos-altering.

We're like strange attractors,

occasionally close together,

mostly sort of orbiting each other.

(2019)