by William DeFord
In the universe, between galaxies, each atom is at a distance of about one meter from its next neighbor. Still, the space between those atoms is not empty; it is bright with light and other radiation from very different sources.
Henning Genz
You didn’t hug the armrest on the far end of the couch: In the middle, you sat easy. I didn’t talk much. I stayed to my side. I'm a skeptic outside your bright world: your sphere a nucleus I orbit. An atom, I hear, is mostly space, electrons bouncing farther toward the out- er rings, out in the dark, out in the spaces. Wish I could fight entropy and struggle to the center where you are— bound into a core, opposites in un- ion, balanced . . . But I still spin outward, out: Empty space between us on the couch.