by Christopher Bursk

    Because one day I grew so bored

    with Lucretius， I fell in love

    with the one object that seemed to be stationary¹，

    the sleeping kid two rows up，

    the appealing squalor of his drooping² socks.

    While the author of De Rerum Natura was making fun

    of those who fear the steep way and lose the truth，

    I was studying the unruly hairs on Peter Diamond‘s right leg.

    Titus Lucretius Caro labored³， dactyl by dactyl

    to convince our Latin IV class of the atomic

    composition of smoke and dew，

    and I tried to make sense of a boy‘s ankles，

    the calves‘ intriguing⁴

    resiliency， the integrity to the shank，

    the solid geometry of my classmate‘s body.

    Light falling through blinds，

    a bee flinging itself into a flower，

    a seemingly infinite set of texts

    to translate and now this particular configuration⁵ of atoms

    who was given a name at birth，

    Peter Diamond， and sat two rows in front of me，

    his long arms， his legs that like Lucretius‘s hexameters

    seemed to go on forever， all this hurly-burly

    of matter that had the goodness to settle

    long enough to make a body

    so fascinating it got me

    through fifty-five minutes

    of the nature of things.

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