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THEORY OF RELATIVITY
Arc of water flashes
and when it becomes
an absence, when its presence
is past, I know its
essence in the back of
my throat, on my
still dry palate.
I know it from memory
and an uncanny sense
of what it has always
been. Cold water is
always cold water.
When he died
I knew him still.
Before my son is
born I know him.
(I have imagined
his infinite
possibilities and I
know his essence
by knowing myself
as a son; his youth
as mine, his rebellion
as mine is or
might have been.) We
all pass into life
from imagination and
out of it into
memory, arcs of
flesh linked
like the arches of
the Roman aqueduct
in the hot sun,
pale and forever.
- Nathan Huttner
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