“Gold Foil Experiment” © 2024 by Teo Nalani
Content warning:
We are all harmonic oscillators
sloshing around in watery bags of salt,
doing work on the surroundings
as patiently chaos consumes us.
As feelings arrive in waves to wash our brains
and scientists shoot little balls at sheets of gold,
I see the absurdity on your face:
These bodies are sixty percent water
and water is ninety-nine
point nine-nine-nine
percent empty space.
It’s a wonder there is anything at all in this place.
So lift up the layers of your carbon skeleton
to the energy raining down from the heavens—
for here, in the ragdoll physics of this world,
we are the resonating filaments
of a song across the abyss.