Barbara Daniels If Einstein is right we’re already dead. All of our elements lift and float, regret a glint of bright water. Time = space and we’re in it, clomp of your feet in cheap garage oxfords. You beside me, that’s what I love, not the distance between us, the spikes of light. According to Einstein, time bends and shifts us. We’re milled to new matter in roaring steam like the chuff of a train on a new-laid track. Time creates space, blood on gauze pads, your blood in a basin. The clock on the toilet ticks us backwards. I hear what I heard in your Brooklyn apartment, sirens and street noise. The sweet earth wobbles, leans to one side and shudders beneath us. Your arms grip me; my heart thumps in the dizzy spin. Atoms burst and decades twist past us. I kiss your sweet lips, no space between us, your beard in my ear.

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