Those horses you worshipped at five, then seven, still at twelve were 
nothing more than invisible tornados, quarks, photons, vibrating 
through the snow and darkness that worked its way into your body
at five, then seven, still at twenty-six, breaking the barrier of sound
you named those horses Albert and Planck and Heisenberg

your bones at thirteen, the crownpiece and browband breaking 
my arms empty of you, heart, a derelict amusement park 
shouldering the heft of Februaries into every emergency room where   
the mercury ground to a halt like a small machine while the doctor
sank into mathematical improbabilities and lies, easy as quicksand

how could I have known that nothing is solid, that the atoms buzzing
through you were just tiny cumulus clouds, your body making ghost 
bombs, even your slight shadow could not fathom, how could the earth
feel at once so callous and tempestuous and did I let the devil in
naming you after my dead mother? How could I have known

that every night would fall into my lap like a damaged stethoscope 
sculpting you into an ache as impossible as those horses we once worshipped
I add leap seconds, intermissions, into your infinite affliction opus 
take an axe to the coffin particles beating down the door, watch them 
splinter like horse hooves into nothing but dark matter.