Conservation of Angular Momentum
by J. M. Eno
I remember my daughter
five years old, starfished
on the merry-go-round
Laughing and spinning,
and when she pulled in her limbs
like a shy flower
she would spin even faster
She always wanted to go faster
I heard that momentum is conserved forever,
that the same principle applies
from the smallest parts of matter
to the largest exoplanets
So tell me,
when I would
raise her up above my head
and look into her gleeful eyes,
our bodies stretched out like a limb of Earth extended,
did the world spin slower
for everyone or
just me?
And when I dropped
to my knees after
hearing the unspeakable,
did the world spin a little bit faster?
And when they put
her tiny body
in the ground,
did it spin a little faster still?
She always wanted to go faster
J.M. Eno's work has appeared or is forthcoming in House of Zolo's Journal of Speculative Literature, Cobalt, and Zooscape Zine. He can be found among the trees with his family and a recalcitrant English bulldog or on Twitter at @jmenowrites.
