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What You’ve Taught Me About Temperature

Scientists have determined
that the temperature of cold
is warmer than it was, their calculations

to determine wind chill have been updated
to reflect, presumably, a smarter conflagration

of  data. The facts, you said,
are flexible. Logical.
Looking at you then, something

in me broke apart, shattered
into shards of realization. Facts

are flexible, and the logic of obsession
is not subject to mere science. I measure
the temperature of my last night with you

in mercury, it’s a photograph: the data
found there less useful than the numbers

I collate from our bodies, add the flush that rises
just above your breasts to my speeding pulse,
subtract the measure of your silence

and divide by the seer weight
of my inability to put my feelings into a language
you are able to decipher –

the result is far colder
than the mercury would lead us to believe.

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