The God Particle

God reveals in particles,
proton, pion, meson, muon and so on,
here and there a quark…

And now, Higgs boson, the glue, the vacuum,
the holy ghost that holds it all together,
the last piece in the universal puzzle,

posed as I stand before the bathroom mirror,
practicing beguiling smiles, amidst the detritus,
ineluctable explosion of liver spots and lines,
a pitted razor blade, soap’s last remains, magic
creams, deodorants, unguents, pills, particles.

Higgs, a fitting name, like Jeeves or Mellors,
watchful, working stiffs, without whom house and garden
fall apart, in quiet disapproval of the occupants

reflected in the face I’m given. I recognize
my father’s smile, trapped in the penumbral light
of an accountant’s eyeshade. He reaches out a hand
I do not recognize, caresses vacantly, and before retreat
into the Wall Street Journal, speaks my name…

a kind of “cosmic molasses” that stops everything
from moving at the speed of light and answers the question
I have always struggled with, “Why does matter have mass?”

tied together in the single long black braid
she wore, sitting on top of me, samurai horsewoman,
enduring significant other, living today in Bangor, Maine.
Did she really have a burnished glow, a nimbus, an aura?
We talked, at length, of capacity to love,

known only by its vibrations; the paradox is, some say, that
the last piece in the Standard Model will prove the model wrong.
Higgses’ anti-matter evil twin is grinning at me in the mirror.

~~~~~~~~

By David Blum