in science we learn about momentum.
we watch videos of soap box derbies,
balls bouncing,
rockets blasting into space,
and the mathematical formula seems so simple:
mass times velocity equals momentum
but I am a linguist
and all I can think about is
the root movere,
to move
which is simpler to understand
and describes,
in its perfect infinitive form,
what you do to me.
I used to think that you and I were a covalent bond,
sharing our electrons in a Venn-diagram link
that could not be broken or shared with another atom.
But we are grown now, and I see the difference in us:
we are truly ionic, not connected in a way that we cannot break,
but handing electrons back and forth, giving and taking.
We are charged, sometimes positive, sometimes negative,
hovering around each other like fireflies in the forest,
our bond allowing us to gain strength from one another.
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