Brian Satrom

The Physics of It

A room that smells of jasmine,
or of burnt toast, or of dust
and cats, or maybe it’s just a chair
in a backyard —any space

that you’ve assumed as a given,
know you could return to,
whether or not you have,
until you can’t. Also anything

getting dismantled or torn down,
a home, schoolyard, or even
an old factory with its outer walls
knocked out, ductwork

in piles, a glimpse driving by
of a breakroom on the second floor
half gone as if a cutaway
illustration, chairs still arranged

at a table. I heard recently on TV
a scientist use the term sublimation,
which I haven’t thought about since
high-school physics. The spirit

found outside its housing as a poet
once put it. As if there’s a formula
or law that describes our inability
to stay once we’ve arrived.

Note: The quoted phrase is from “The Surviving” by Christopher Gilbert.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Brian Satrom’s poetry collection Starting Again was released by Finishing Line Press in 2020. His poetry has appeared in a variety of journals, most recently UCity Review and Sugar House Review (where it received a Pushcart Prize nomination) and is forthcoming in Hypertext Review and the anthology The Overturning. Brian’s work has also been featured on Verse Daily and Vandal Poem of the Day. After completing his MFA at the University of Maryland, he lived in Madison, Wisconsin and Los Angeles before settling in Minneapolis. You can find more about him at briansatrom.com.