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.