Molly Brodak
A Kicked Top
If two drifting spiral waves are close enough they will repel.
If nonsymmetrical, one will enslave the other.
In this way a nice symmetry feels lonely.
Old books suppose we evolved from snakes
because of how we are.
Partially finished, itchy in deep-hole geometries.
Mutators. Quick to enslave. Binding
time with a body, the chemical ghost of a house
in an archaic shape, abandonable. Recall
the 3 billion years there was no death: bacteria
splitting infinitely. Then in needing each other
concretely, looking down at their nakedness,
they began to eat someone near,
and die. This story is also in old books.
A Kicked Top
If two drifting spiral waves are close enough they will repel.
If nonsymmetrical, one will enslave the other.
In this way a nice symmetry feels lonely.
Old books suppose we evolved from snakes
because of how we are.
Partially finished, itchy in deep-hole geometries.
Mutators. Quick to enslave. Binding
time with a body, the chemical ghost of a house
in an archaic shape, abandonable. Recall
the 3 billion years there was no death: bacteria
splitting infinitely. Then in needing each other
concretely, looking down at their nakedness,
they began to eat someone near,
and die. This story is also in old books.
Molly Brodak is the author of A Little Middle of the Night (University of Iowa Press, 2010) and three chapbooks of poetry. She lives in Atlanta and edits the poetry journal Aesthetix.
