Friday Poem

I'm posting an original poem every Friday for a year. Just from newspaper headlines I mistakenly assumed that if there was a Large Hadron Collider (one of the greatest scientific experiments in history, which some people worried would create a world-eating black hole), there must have been a Small Hadron Collider. I wondered how it felt about being ditched for a newer model.

The Love Song of the Small Hadron Collider

We were young and so passionate

we named every spark,

as if naming sons.

Meson, boson, muon.

We drew the energy of a mid-size city.

"Be careful," they laughed. "You might end the world."

I suppose that's what it means to be in love.

I gave him my secrets slowly,

like leaning in toward a Seurat.

A hand, a boat, a parasol,

nothing but atoms of color.

But he and I were so different,

silicone and flesh.

I knew it couldn't last.

Soon

my infinities were too small for him,

my eternities too brief.

I hear he has a new muse,

with bigger secrets.

Perhaps the world will survive.

I'm fine.

My lights are still on.

My superconductors

still thrum.

Miles of cable still connect me to the

great web,

though no one enters my

circular tunnels and

nothing shoots around them.

I'm in a new relationship.

This one isn't bothered by the same questions as my old love.

Why should he be?

No birth to ponder.

No death to fear.

No jealousy.

They say he's intelligent

but so

artificial.

I don't mind.

He's all

ones and zeroes and

curiosity, just like me.

We have plans.

And, anyway,

I've had enough of humans.