Michael Lauchlan

Someone Is Trying To Explain

relativity to me again.
I’d say more about her talk,
but I’m not drunk enough.
Not yet. A hundred years
after Einstein, you might think
we’d all understand time,
its pliant sinews, the personal clock
by which we gauge our passage.
I only know how long it takes
to stop a wailing baby’s tears–
one thousand steps while
swaying to Miles Smiles–
and how long it took mom
to release her last breath.
Maybe Einstein pictured someone
watching us from a light speed
fly-by, but he left some hints
about a never-completed past
and an indiscernible future, how
everything peels away from
an instant where we long for a call
from a daughter driving home
over icy roads. As for the hours
a prisoner waits for a parole board
to read a passel of letters,
to meet and decide? We don’t
have that kind of time.

Michael Lauchlan

Michael Lauchlan has contributed to many publications, including New England Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The North American Review, Sugar House Review, Louisville Review, Poet Lore, and Lake Effect. His most recent collection is Trumbull Ave., from WSU Press (2015).