Modern physics

When I’m with you I feel like a photon
—time dilutes to a standstill
& space shrinks to a point
smaller than the head of a pin
& all life’s agonies but stings of love.
It must be love, right? Otherwise it’d have to be death.
No matter, a world is born from each of these
infinitesimal stings—ecstasies exploding
on the n-dimensional trembling membrane
of the soul as it stands
before this encircling ocean
from which it has been so far veiled
by a love (or a death)
& on which it is now called to sail again
by a death (or a love).

Khôi