Homesickness as particle theory

An atom cannot exist
if the centre does not hold.

Matter cannot hold
if the atoms swing apart

too far—

      that summer night: 
I could feel the pieces of my life
circling away from me in distances so vast

the volume of separation
seemed infinite.

I caught
the wisp of my grandfather’s
pipe smoke, 

the saturated indigo
of a green downstate summer evening,

every window open
to the chance of sleep

in deep humidity,
washed in waves of cricket song

and the far pungent howl of a coyote
edging the cornfields.

All in seconds
lifted away. 

I felt
the earth turn, the arm
of a galaxy tremor.

Can my atoms know
enough by their contact—

memory, 
is it a vibration?

Must I touch my life
to still know it?

Though I lay still
I could feel myself grasping
    for the scent of thunderstorm,
the taste of lightning,
a nine-volt.

My body was smaller, 
my hair lighter blonde,
my bones full of hope.

As the dusk drained out
its purples and fell to blue,

I was in two places at once. 

That night
my hair had the slight iron smell
of well water
or the river.