Electromagnetism

The crackle of static
Excited electrons
Jumping out of their assigned orbits
Arcing through the air
The photons they emit
Glance off the brown iris
Of your eyes
A micro instant before
The electrons contact my skin
A full instant before your fingers
Touch mine;
Triggering dormant nerve cells into action:
Racing impulses to a brain
Where eager synapses trigger thoughts
That stoke the imagination for a while,
Yet never incite the tongue to speak,
Nor the limbs to act.

The twinkle in your eyes,
The jolt of static,
The touch of your fingertips
(A digital connection of the physical kind),
And the thoughts they inspire --
A four-beat symphony of attraction,
Of electricity and magnetism
That lives in the fecund imagination
Of a mind
Trapped in a timorous body --
Too timid to act.

March 2017