Physics

Under my desk, there’s a box of cassette tapes.

They transcribe the path of the bead of saline dripping down your cheek

and the box reads, “FRICTION.”

Friction (n): the force of resisting the lateral relative motion of surfaces.

I’ve always felt that the action most worth watching

is not at the center of things, but where the edges meet.

I like shorelines and weather fronts,

international borders.

Curious frictions and incongruities are apparent at these junctures

and if you stand at the point of tangency,

you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.

I am in the middle of you and I am blind.

Coulomb never thought about friction the way I do.

There’s a misconnect between the normal force,

the empirical property of the contacting objects,

and the way you feel when we kiss.

Maybe his heart disagreed with Newtonian physics

but his mind and his intelligence conquered the apple inside his ribcage.

Maybe you can ask him for me.

Maybe you can answer me this:

When the bead of saline drips down your cheek and stops in the center,

is it the force resisting the relative motion of a solid body through a fluid,

or a fluid resisting the motion of your solid body?

Under my desk, there’s a box of cassette tapes.

They transcribe the path of many things in this world

and the box reads, “FRICTION.”