"Broken Infinities" by M. Benjamin Thorne

Broken Infinites

The world is full of small miracles:
the perfect math of a snail shell’s
curl; the clever way Ammolite traps
the aurora borealis in stone. And you,
the way a thousand generations of
genes knit themselves in a subtle stitch
to make your smile, helixes twisting
in their contained infinities to form
the sinews of your heart. But
amidst the intertwining: a break
that reft the woof or warp in the weave
of nucleotides, the broken spindles
that would spiral out their splintered design
through blood cells to the chest wall
behind your breast. Bashert. You
are so perfect — except that little sliver
of corrupted code. How could part
of what makes you a part of me
also cause you to depart? I’d reach
into each cell and pluck the fuckers
out with my teeth, spit them into hell.
But instead I sit days of miles away, able
only to love you, and wait, and wait.

M. Benjamin Thorne

A Pushcart Prize nominee, M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. Possessed of a lifelong love of history and poetry, he is interested in exploring the synergy between the two. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Feral, Neologism Poetry Journal, San Antonio Review, Thimble Lit Mag, Last Syllable Lit, and Salvation South. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Headshot: JM

Photo Credit: Staff