By Kimberly Johnson

Featured Art: Water Bubbles by Pixabay

Oh, my quantum soul—restive, sizzling
               In its nimbus
       Of need. How it dizzies

In the orbit of another’s passing
               Fancy, fickle
       As it flirts its vacant shells

Hey there sexy fella can you fill
               My spinning empties
       With your any loose electrons?

How in relentless ciphers it scrawls
               On any bathroom wall
       My atomic number.

It is a light element, an errant
               Sphere with strong wants:
       Come Lover, let’s charge ourselves

A spark, a star, a dark and secret
               Supernova, let
       Us cleave ourselves: attract,

Repel, attract, repel, let us fall
               In common gravity,
       By which I mean love, and then fall

Out.

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Kimberly Johnson’s most recent collection is Uncommon Prayer. She has work recent and forthcoming in The New Yorker and Best American Poetry 2020. Johnson is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, among others. She lives and teaches in Utah.