Time
By Marc Jan

I once was told that manifolds held
in them a scripture of numbers unlike integers;
the kind that slipped beyond fingers
like butterflies watched in awe.
Their logarithm was diaphanous
with variables tending towards infinite
cataclysm of organisms – this chaos;
it brewed their magic, their life.

I forgot who told me this –
the shine of the next day though, I could count.
It was weaved in twos, pairs, conjugal
proposals of marriage, love, dance and heat.
The warmth radiated from the particle-
comet showers on my skin, prickling
shivers from my fingertips –
why did I let go so easily?

Oh, a physicist! That’s who told me…
But by day three he was gone in refraction
‘gainst matter, an anti-matter so to speak.
He derived from creation a destruction,
annihilation of existence in eternal patience -
too stubborn to see butterflies, he
dissected numbers, rhythms, logs.