For you alone I will dumb myself down
Unlearn all the things that are true
About the universe
(So therefore, me and you)
Like how the self is not a
Single thing but scattered
Through the brain in pieces
that come together for a time
Then fall apart when that time ceases.
And how love is not a force of nature
Akin to energy or gravity
But something almost weightless
A neural signal writ in dopamine
That moved a lonely God to create us
For you I will forget it all
To mirror what you feel for me,
tit for tat.
I can promise you this.
But what I cannot promise you is that:
I will not one day mistake you
for a hat.
Don Sellitti is retired after a thirty-eight year career in research and teaching at a university. His publications number in the fifties, but all are in scientific journals and the closest thing to poetry in them is a well-turned phrase in the Discussion section.
Nonetheless, he admires the way poets can tackle the same unknowns of life that he as, but in a way that’s more fun to read, and that sometimes rhymes.