Julia Ponder
Quantum Ghosts
I
Electrons behave like waves,
and probability decides.
You interpret the wave equation
as randomness,
as shuffling and dealing cards.
II
An empty field
then the crashing and
breaking of distant branches.
Birds suffering through the
clouds. Snow was heavy last
night, weighing it all down.
III
I’m scraping ice from asphalt
when I notice three apples
hanging on the bottom of a tree
in a long row of barrenness,
still red, still swollen, waiting.
IV
Electrons will be in multiple
states at one time.
A moment requires a witness to
convert light signals into images.
You are dead and alive until
someone takes a chance to see
many worlds, many cats,
many tarot packs,
collapsing into
a pool of minutes spilling on the floor—
Your greatest moment.
Your greatest defeat.
Lady Poet
Am I too old to chew my lip?
Putting my hand in Schrodinger’s
box, I try again to revise the sound
of claws on cardboard.
Bound up in my garage, is a raccoon,
not a cat, that scratches at the opening
of this box as poison gas does or does not
permeate its lungs.
How many more years will be dedicated
to fingernails sticky with bile
and raccoon hair? The sink becomes
a massacre of universes, but I am never
clean, nor do I ever know if the poor
thing lived, only that I am filthy.
Above is a pane of toothpaste-stained
glass where I can just barely make out
that the one I look for is back from the dead.
Lady poets are always writing about mirrors
but when I look up in the mirror,
I see your reflection, Dad—
combing your hair and scowling, burdened
by age and trying to blur the lines
of your cheeks while scrubbing
desperately at my pores.
Julia Ponder is a teacher, writer, and poet living in the Hudson Valley region of New York. Her poetry and creative non-fiction have been published in print and online publications, including the Chronogram, 805Lit, The Shawangunk Review, THAT Magazine, Poet's Choice, the Dillydoun Review, Hudson Valley Writer's Guild, and The Sonder Review. Her debut poetry collection, Quantum Ghosts, is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press.