Love Is A Lot Like Physics

By Maureen Doallas

Love is a lot
like physics:
it takes study

to understand
how masses —
yours, his —

attract; how his body
heat conducts and
your heart rate

accelerates before
either has had time
to evaluate impact.

You think you
understand velocity,
assume his speed

at takeoff matches
yours. You fail to
account for force

or Newton’s third
law of motion.
The outcome of that

one wrong electrical charge
leaves all the circuits
broken. You begin to

oscillate, fall from orbit,
finally calculate the variables
of just so much hot air.

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