No one can explain how sand dunes
 
communicate     Why planes stay in the air
 
Most theories can’t account for low-pressure zones
 
Even Newton’s third law falls short
 
Between drag and thrust, weight and lift
 
You’re much more superstitious than religious
 
Turning tree bark into polyurethane
 
Material engineering a kind of alchemy
 
Ever having fun in front of strangers
 
I’m camera shy     A particle unwatched
 
in the double-slit experiment
 
It’s not physics, but atomic loneliness:
 
The fear that when I lean against a wall
 
the wall won’t lean back on me
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CASSIDY MCFADZEAN lives in Toronto. She is the author of Drolleries (McClelland & Stewart 2019) and Hacker Packer (M&S 2015). Her poems have appeared in BOAAT, The Boiler, Diode, American Poetry Journal, and elsewhere.