Five and a Half (5 1/2) Minutes
from Our First Mistake
from The Woman Upstairs
Every 5 1/2 minutes,
the universe expands 4 miles.
And every time I blink,
another child enters the world.
The world has 6 1/2 billion people
this year,
And there are 8 million people
in this city on this island,
But right here, right now
somehow you’re sitting here.
I may not ever catch my breath no matter how I try.
And I may never understand how every single day
we breathe 23 thousand times.
Because watching your chest rise and fall,
The numbers don’t add up -
when all we are’s 100 trillion cells,
206 bones, 5 quarts of blood,
45 miles of nerves nerves nerves
and 100 thousand hairs
and too many organs
and 60 thousand miles of arteries.
We must have been made by a man
’cause a woman would have made us more economically.
I don’t know what that means -
All I know is that I’ve seen this scene some years ago
and I would swear I’m watching from the stands.
And I would swear I know
a second before you reach for her hand.
Feels like it’s some old movie,
But the script’s no good and the girl’s no beauty.
There’s the evidence -
More facts -
But there won’t ever be a science of
the way you find or keep or measure love.
How do you find or keep or measure love?
