T. A. Noonan

from The Midway Iterations

m₁₈

// invading

but who cares about any of this

there are more important things

there's that email you need to send

when you stop & a husband to text

& a plane overhead that reminds you

of the Oort cloud, of the probability

that a comet will shake loose from

your wild hair & take out the city

where you live

( where you travel )

Erin's on the phone again

demanding Swedish meatballs

you think to yourself that somewhere

there is someone who will sing you

to sleep with Kabbalah & astrophysics

someone who knows the aethers

someone below or maybe topping

someone who wants you someone

who wants you someone who wants

---

m₂₀

// as if to say

Florida I don't

love you the same

our relationship is

midrash of travel

of alpha particles

& late-night calls

your coasts keep me

never hold me still

I decay, lose my

insides as heat

rises

moves south

the sun is up

it says you're all that ever

will be or maybe just

you're alive on arrival

---

m₂₁

// no matter

my bed is a Feynman diagram

unmade sheets sine waves

of annihilation, photon

production——trajectory

of pillows falling away

when I wake up alone

——there is no matter

here for me, only failed

applications & domains

left undefined

---

m₂₂

// how loud you blast

there is no hip hop, no J-pop

no classic rock jam big enough

to shake me out of this state

no overbass to rattle me free

from simple harmonic motion

I am stuck here I am looking

into someone's eyes I turn on

my stereo I realize this is what

a pendulum feels like & I don't

even know how to write

those equations anymore

---

m₂₃

// Wu-Tang

I might be part of the swarm

or maybe I remember that killa bees

is the name I gave my squadron

of lovers——

the first, a goth girl

on the library conference table

later, the boy who said I looked

sexier with my coat on & a cigarette

in my mouth instead of him

the inventor with eyes the color

of his name & the writer

who reminded me of quasars

——so many, all gone

Hawking says gravity always attracts

never repels adds up over time

I touch my lips where they sting

---

m_∞

// you can't leave without us

the point is

( these are the things

I think about when I drive

to & from you, Florida

words from other words

physics that govern

how there are so many

yous inside of me

how I am that Flying J

& all the dreams of our

combined possibilities )

made

without acknowledgment

---

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