by Morgan Cross
You turn me on. I mean, you turn me from wave
to particle-localized space-time event.
Sorry, is quantum physics unsexy? I mean, you pause me.
I mean, my millions unmultiply. I mean,
have you ever caught my pupil amiss? No,
‘cause when you look, I am. Remember
that time I saw God? High in bed.
You laughed at me. I laughed at the absurdity.
But you were. I mean, you are.
I mean, I saw your enormity through the eyes
of an atom, your complexity through the confines
of a quark. I felt your mountain years.
Ancient particles, freeze-dancing waves.
Married since the dawn. Remember
before we met? Me feigning infinite possibility,
you lowering a trap into the depths.
Surfaced, I wound a single tentacle
through the bars and around your finger,
whispering like lore into your hunter’s ear
those seven bygone opportunities. Sun-struck, you
took my measurements and gave me a name.
I become, because of you, what I am.
Exact as the coastline of the hawthorn leaf.
Exact as a stone in your shoe.
We’ll eat the berry, or not. We’ll dream tonight,
or not. We’ll wait our turn on the line,
endure the hold music, watch closely while
our fates are sown in a trillion dream seeds
and pruned by the shears of the waking world.
You tell me we can have anything.
Any one thing.
MORGAN CROSS is a writer and acupuncturist living on traditional and unceded Sc’ianew, Lekwungen, and W̱SÁNEĆ territories. Her stories and poems have appeared in The Malahat Review, PRISM international, Room, and more.
Observer Effect was edited by Terese Mason Pierre and Helena Ramsaroop. It can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 8.3.
