“The Assistant Professor of Physics”

I watch her in that crosswalk every day,
Her stride, the way she swings her hair.
Her strong eyes track up this way
And challenge. She surprises me in class.
Now, I contemplate, I do,
The romance that would display
The qualities of a rare isotope:
Unstable, dangerous, luminous as radium.

My father’s voice reminds me of my age:
Twice hers. Simply twice hers. Ok, dad.
And I am weak when I think of the energy
Needs of such experiments,
The intricate
Magnetic fields required for containment,
For safety. She’s skipped across, a cascade
Of a million motions in a golden fall.

I was reading in Scientific American
That men till forty, married or not,
Think of sex every five seconds.
After that it falls
All the way to fifteen. Thanks,
Was all I could think.

I had thought to get some work done soon.
This year or the year after. To grow up.
To somehow kind of get clear.