Dilation of Time by Sem Megson

A graduate of the University of Toronto, Sem Megson’s work has been published in American, British and Canadian literary journals and produced by theatres in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, and London, England. For more information, visit semmegson.com.

 

Dilation of Time

Languid words in Einstein’s book claimed time
rushes faster away from a source of gravity,
as if lovers hadn’t written of relativity first
that an hour spins past itself when they’re apart
and slows its hands when they’re together.
The theory of dripping moments didn’t begin
with time is distance divided by velocity,
but longing is distance multiplied by desire.
Understood by romantics without an equation,
they intuited the law a scientist proposed:
A body contracts in the direction of motion
measured by the affections of an observer
until their diverted libido begins to approach
the speed of light where all promises obliterate.
So a dilation of time describes the differences
sensed by two within a gravitational field,
yet it cannot explain why their yearning exists
to travel back and forth to each other in time.