and I will unzip my sternum,
pull open my flesh and ribs
and show you that black space
inside of me, scattered with
burning stars, cosmic dust, spiral
galaxies, all manner of comet and stone.
Goddamn, you’ll say.
Now show me yours, I’ll say.
We’ll dance hand in hand to violins and horns,
two universes breathing parallel and in sync.
Hell, we may even crash together
and become something familiar
and altogether new, something full of life.
Physicists keep finding
the number 137
lurking in equations.
Not exactly 137.
Closer to
137.035999…
which somehow feels
coy.
A number so important
that generations of scientists
have stared at it
like a cat
watching a closed door.
Wolfgang Pauli joked
that his first question
to God would be:
“Why 137?”
And then he proceeded
to die in a Room 137
of Rotkreuz Hospital,
a final wink from above.
No one knows
why 137 is what it is.
Only that if it were different
the universe
might not hold together.
Stars.
Atoms.
Light.
The possibility
of touching anything.
I read this
late at night
while lying beside someone.
Their hand
resting on my stomach.
Neither of us speaking.
I thought about
how the body
has its own constants.
Its own equations.
The angle
between where your eyeline
meets my thigh
and my eyes.
The precise pressure
and texture and heat
of a palm.
The distance
between anticipation
and surrender.
The sudden moment
when the self
becomes briefly
too small
to remain stable.
I have spent years
trying to understand
why certain things
make life worth living.
Why a laugh
arriving at exactly
the right moment
can rearrange a day.
Why desire
can feel older
than language.
Why another person’s
smell can reach places
inside you
that your thoughts
never could.
Physicists call 137
the fine-structure constant.
As if mystery
should be given
a sensible pair of shoes.
Meanwhile
the number waits
inside light.
Inside matter.
Inside every atom.
Refusing explanation.
The way pleasure refuses it.
The way love abolishes it.
The way for one impossible second
the body forgets
where it ends
and the rest of the universe
begins.
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Painted ductwork
made a 1972 modern
clever ceiling for where
the college chapel
got tucked away between
storage and the mailroom.
Gerry, Bob, Stagg and I
lurked there often after Sandy Cuni’s
freshman English class.
Bob some days brought his guitar
and accompanied our warbles
of Simon and Garfunkel tunes.
Confessionals made nifty places
for hide and seek.
The tabernacle was a black box
with chrome keyhole;
all the chairs were
black plastic and chrome.
Nobody else would be there.
Except on Moratorium Day
when the place would be packed
with students and faculty
singing hopefully:
All we are saying
Is give peace a chance.
(Inspired by Helen Nelson-Reed’s “Pondering the Garden”)
Flowers robe her head, intone
an ageless chant—green with verve,
framed by blue’s mirth—a praise
song for vermilion’s honesty, tinged
yellow by curiosity. A mandala
flower falls, frictionless, to her hand,
prickles then stills the air, anointing
fingers, musings, desires with an aura
that could be fleeting, but seeks
perfection instead, encircled by eternity.
(I can’t figure out how to add an image here, but will change my profile picture.)
Shy bones peer through my skin like a hide
-and-seek game I wound up lost in.
How long will my body feast upon itself,
dark wine of my spirit poured out,
before I invite you to share in it?
Let’s call this communion. Here I am,
a sacrament. Take and eat.
I am a bird hitting the window. I am the ants I once mangled on the concrete as a kid. I am the bundle of peonies in my mother’s arms, picked from her garden in the backyard. I am shattered robin eggs beneath a tree. I am the spring’s defrost, the redbud blooms in March, the delight of your heart. I am a bride draped in white, and this is our marriage song. How long until I feel the release of this ache seared upon my skin? You say, Watch and see what I shall do. I will, Lord, I will.
I’m good, I’m strong, and
Create space for all to be
Accepted and seen,
I admire… What’s not me
I easily float,
Maybe glide, through any room
Seeing them see me,
Blazing eyes with what’s assumed…
Little do they know,
I’ll entice without intent,
Amused by facades,
Know they’ll take without consent
But then, there’s magic
Dangled in front of my face
Almost believing
Thoughts that I “can’t be replaced”
And…
I know that’s a fact
Because there’s no weight like me
As a blanket or
Challenge, so captivating
But my words echo,
Reverb inside my own head
Every interaction,
Keep replaying what I’ve said
Crave to be your peace,
Yet I can’t seem to find mine,
Yeah, it’s me, I know,
Too much of me to define
I was trying to sleep when my blue-grey
anxiety decided it was time
to analyze every word you had, and hadn’t,
said in the last week:
I said ‘I love you,’ one time, you didn’t say it back
and you asked me to not call you
because you didn’t feel well.
I know you love me. Why is this so damn hard?
Your replies to texts were succinct,
but not unkind.
Pulling conversation out of you
felt like climbing Everest without a guide.
And while I won enough to not call you (because you
asked me not to) when it wasn’t quite last night,
but not quite this morning either, I haven’t slept.
And we know what happens when I don’t sleep.
We know what happens when I don’t sleep.
tongue kept hush in this dark box
my knees cramp and lock, mid-turn
fear kept chest deep, beating shame
play the twisted games, wrists burned
from ropes woven long ago
I know you know, know you do
knife scrapes the blades in my back
festering and black, it grew
a body wound, controlled bleed
regret eating, creeping rust
why didn’t I fight the grip
let it kill me in one crush
Preserving wisdom–
These frosted waters are blurred
The briar and thorn
burning like bloodied honey
that seeps under cedar doors
The Winter violet,
an antediluvian
storm that perseveres
A crisp acumen ignites
the Robin before the dawn
An acclivitous
reflection craves memory
that covers the wound
But how can the wept moon stop
the rebellion of the sun?
©️Winter Dawn Burns
If men closely read
Louis L’Amour’s characters
For morality
They might find humanity,
Not violence, heroic.
If men closely read
Larry McMurtry’s stories
For unspoken words
And the harms they manifest
Those wounds might scar, not fester.
If men closely read
James Wade’s western characters
For redemption lost
To thirst for retribution
Peace not pain might be the brand.
