I was recently sent this poem by a friend of mine. It’s an astounding piece:
The Physics of Love
Mass is not proportional to volume.
That girl as small as a violet,
that girl who floats like a petal
pulls me toward her with a force
greater than the Earth’s mass.
In an instant,
like Newton’s apple,
I dropped with a thump
and rolled to her
without stopping.
Thump.
Thump.
My dizzy heart kept swinging
between Heaven and Earth—
it was my first love.
—Kim In-yook, The Physics of Love. Translated by David Bowles September 23, 2021
And here is my take on “The Physics of Love”, inspired by this beautiful poem.
The Physics of Love, cont.
Mass does not determine volume.
What is the volume of the human body? she asked me once.
How many liters are contained by my skin and bones and flesh?
I ruffled her hair, and responded,
Why, this is a simple problem of density and mass. Here, let me show you…
But no, this calculation cannot be correct.
It cannot be, and I know this because
When my lover reaches to embrace me,
I feel something within me seeping out,
Tentatively at first, then in enormous volumes.
Yet I am still whole.
So I know, this cannot be.
And when the hand rises to strike a blow,
I look into the eyes,
Full of bottomless tanks of hate. Fury. Pain.
So I know, for certain: it cannot be.
The volume of the human body
Would never be bounded by the simple frame of flesh and bone.