non-locality

By Jarrod Sage

i heard you on the phone until the sun rose several days in 
a row: through blinds, morning rays would begin to glow, 
but i paid them no mind—it didn’t matter at all that our 
calls stretched across half the country’s span; that you 
lived two hours in the past; that you sat and bitched about 
San Francisco traffic as i lay watching you become naked 
with each word to which i listened; that in the passing of 
every minute we simmered in the languor of the other’s 
laugh, unable to catch ourselves becoming less of 
strangers, our hands drawn to clasp, our time slipping by 
as the seconds ticked on, piling infinite like sands; those 
sands building dunes separating me from you, you from 
me—separating us from we such that these two lovers 
estranged simply lazed and daydreamed endlessly of how 
they might meet; of how we might kiss; of how our hearts 
and minds might mix against a backdrop of Bay Area 
mist, two bodies shrouded, cloudy, blending at the 
pigments of pink lips as each our skin became perforated, 
as if the planes of two orbits had intersected or how 
atomic collision begets fluorescence; how two thousand 
miles of intercalating distance really should have been 
more like two inches, of how two should fuse to one and 
one to none and in our dissolution we could become both 
everything and nothing together all at once—forgetting 
our unity was illusory, because maybe it didn’t have to be: 
i thought maybe by believing that laws like general 
relativity didn’t apply to you and me, that maybe i could 
make spacetime warp; that maybe you could ignore how 
distance is a blunt force which buckles as mountain ranges 
corrugate the space from me to you; that maybe your voice 
was so sweet and smooth i could stay awake too late for 
just one more day; that while i drift to sleep, maybe you 
could pretend reading poetry to me when my midnight 
bends might just keep our hearts mixed; and that after 
such attempts, you and i could defend such nonsense: 
beliefs in this certainty that it would never end; that still 
you and i might blend; that i’d override in six quick weeks 
so far from your side the physics of all causality through 
just a few simple tricks in cellphone instant messaging. 
that your light, fluoresced, could compress all manner of 
dimensions enough to cull oxides and rusts crusted in the 
months since i’d felt your touch—just because we fell 
hard—as if what’s proximal in time could be just as far. 
that the love of two could be enough if bound by only 
sound and light, like how two lone drivers might 
communicate at night. like it didn’t matter at all we 
couldn't bridge that gap. like it was okay you still lived 
two years in your past. that your image in only screens 
shone. that i could only hear your voice through a 
telephone.